Parkville man charged with child endangerment
A Parkville man faces felony charges in connection to an incident in which authorities say a young boy suffered serious injuries.
Sean Patrick Karr, age 38, is in custody in the Platte County Jail on a $100,000 cash only bond. He is charged with Class B felony of endangering the welfare of a child in the first degree.
According to allegations outlined in a probable cause statement filed with the court by authorities, Parkville police were dispatched to Karr’s residence about 8 p.m. on Sept. 3 on a medical call of a five-year-old boy having seizures due to falling down a flight of starts. According to court documents, Karr identified the boy as his girlfriend’s son.
Karr initially told authorities that the boy has a history of seizures and that the boy had suffered a seizure earlier in the evening and had fallen down some stairs. Officers located the boy upstairs in the master bedroom, lying on a small mattress next to the master bed. Officers say it appeared that the boy was having multiple seizures, was vomiting and had multiples bruises on his face. An ambulance arrived and transported the boy to Children’s Mercy Hospital.
According to court documents, without being asked Karr stated that he has never hit the boy. Later in the evening, one of the responding police officers received a call from a nurse at Children’s Mercy Hospital advising that the boy had multiple bruises that were days old and had some possible internal bleeding in his abdomen. The nurse further state the boy was taken for surgery to relieve swelling in his brain, and the nurse advised that the boy has no history of seizures. Later in the night, Children’s Mercy advised officer that the victim had subdural bleeding causing his brain to shift, a craniotomy surgery was being performed to remove blood and pressure from inside of the skull, multiple rib fractures, innumerable pulmonary contusions, a liver laceration, bruises on the bowels, moderate amount of blood in the pelvic area, suspected laceration on the pancreas and bruises over his entire body.
Accompanied by a representative from the Missouri Department of Social Services Children’s Division, police returned to Karr’s residence at about 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 4 to interview him about what had happened. Karr told investigators that the boy has behavioral issues and tends to “act out,” according to court documents.
Karr stated that his girlfriend was out of state and he was taking care of her children and his own son. Karr again repeated injuries occurred when the boy had fallen down the stairs.
Karr told authorities that the boy was vomiting at the top of the stairs and Karr went up the stairs and placed his hand over the boy’s mouth and was going to lead him into the bathroom but the boy turned away from him and fell down the stairs face first. Karr told authorities that when he got to the bottom of the stairs the boy appeared lifeless. Karr stated he picked up the boy, carried him back up the stairs and put him in the shower and he started to “come around.” Karr stated that he contacted his girlfriend by phone and told her of the incident and she told him that if he needed to call an ambulance to do so.
Police say they reviewed the audio of the 9-1-1 call and the male caller told the call-taker that the victim had been down for about 15-20 minutes prior to him making the 911 call. Court documents say the male caller provided a phone number that matches the phone number for Sean Karr.
On Sept. 4, police viewed a Zoom meeting involving a doctor from Children’s Mercy Hospital. The doctor advised that the boy’s injuries were not caused by falling down a flight of stairs and were the result of abuse, according to court documents.
The victim spent time on life support at Children’s Mercy during his hospitalization, according to court documents.
