Doctors and investigators said the baby’s injuries did not match her father’s initial explanation that she had become dangerously overheated.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — A medical examination and apartment surveillance recordings became key evidence in a murder investigation after a 3-month-old girl was hospitalized with severe injuries and died three days later, according to court-document accounts cited in published reports. Her father, Curtis Jenkins, 24, was arrested on a preliminary murder charge after investigators said the evidence conflicted with his explanation that the infant had become too hot while riding in a car without air conditioning.

The investigation began July 18, when Indianapolis police and emergency medical personnel went to a residence on Station Street in northeast Indianapolis for a welfare check on the baby at about 12:40 p.m. Jenkins told authorities he had been driving with his daughter and believed she had overheated in his vehicle, according to accounts of the court records. He said he tried to give the infant water and later called 911 after noticing that she was not breathing normally. The child was taken to Riley Hospital for Children in critical condition. She remained hospitalized until July 21, when she died.

Doctors treating the infant reported injuries that investigators said could not be explained by heat exposure alone. According to the court-document accounts, a physician identified three separate brain bleeds, bleeding in the child’s retinas, broken ribs and extensive hemorrhaging along the spine. Authorities said those findings were inconsistent with the explanation Jenkins had given about an overheated car. The medical evidence did not by itself establish in the reports exactly when or how every injury occurred, but it changed the direction of the police inquiry by giving detectives reason to examine what happened while the child was in Jenkins’ care.

Jenkins denied knowing what had happened to his daughter during an interview with investigators, the court-document accounts said. He also said he would never hurt his children and made a statement about wanting to harm whoever had put their hands on the baby. Police stopped questioning Jenkins after he asked for a lawyer. The reports do not establish that Jenkins later gave investigators another account of the child’s injuries, and no statement from a defense attorney responding to the allegations was included in the material reviewed for this story.

Investigators then turned to surveillance equipment at the apartment complex. Police said the recordings captured Jenkins with the infant during the period they were trying to reconstruct. According to descriptions in the court documents, the recordings included the sound of the baby crying while Jenkins repeatedly yelled at her to be quiet. At one point, authorities said, Jenkins told the child, “You keep crying,” followed by, “I don’t want to deal with you.” Investigators also reported hearing thuds, smacking noises and a sound they believed was consistent with a car seat being dropped. Those descriptions are allegations contained in the investigation and have not been tested at trial.

The recordings became especially important because investigators believed they documented events that occurred when no other caregiver was present. Authorities described one stretch of audio as containing prolonged cries that sounded painful. Later, according to the records, Jenkins could be heard calling the child’s name in a way investigators interpreted as an attempt to wake or rouse her. The published accounts do not say that a camera directly recorded every alleged act investigators believe caused the injuries. Instead, police relied on a combination of sounds, Jenkins’ statements, the child’s condition and the medical findings as they assembled the case.

Detectives also interviewed the child’s mother as they worked to establish the baby’s condition before Jenkins took her. She told investigators that this was the first time Jenkins had been alone with the infant, according to the court-document accounts. She provided investigators with a video that police said showed the child appearing healthy before Jenkins picked her up. The mother also told detectives she had previously been reluctant to leave the baby with him because of what she described as Department of Child Services investigations involving his other children. The available reports do not provide findings from those earlier inquiries, and their existence does not establish wrongdoing in this case.

The mother’s account helped investigators narrow the period they were examining, while the hospital findings gave them a medical basis for challenging the overheating explanation. Police also learned that Jenkins had contacted the apartment property manager about the surveillance footage, according to the reports. Authorities eventually obtained that material themselves. Taken together, the records described an investigation built not on one piece of evidence but on several: Jenkins’ initial explanation, the infant’s medical condition, her mother’s account of her condition before the visit and the surveillance recordings from the apartment complex.

The sequence is significant because police initially encountered a critically ill child rather than a death scene. The baby was alive when emergency crews responded July 18 and was taken to a hospital for treatment. Her death on July 21 changed the stakes of the investigation. Police subsequently identified Jenkins as the suspect in what had become a homicide case and said he was being held on a preliminary murder charge while prosecutors reviewed the evidence. Under Indiana’s criminal process, an arrest allegation is not a finding of guilt, and the state bears the burden of proving any filed charge in court.

Publicly available court information shows that the case continued after the initial arrest. A Marion County docket dated Aug. 14 lists Curtis Jenkins in a State of Indiana criminal case numbered 49D30-2607-MR-022662. The docket confirms that the matter had entered the county court system, but the material reviewed for this article does not establish the full contents of every filing, Jenkins’ plea, the identity of his current attorney or a final trial schedule. Those details should not be assumed from the initial police allegations.

Several questions therefore remain for the court process. Published accounts of the probable-cause material describe severe injuries, surveillance recordings and a timeline in which the infant was allegedly healthy before being left alone with Jenkins, but prosecutors will have to establish what evidence is admissible and what it proves. Defense counsel will have the opportunity to challenge the state’s interpretation of the medical findings, recordings and chronology. The available reporting does not indicate that a judge or jury has made factual findings on those contested issues.

The infant’s death remains the central fact behind the case. What began as a midday welfare check on July 18 became a homicide investigation after doctors identified injuries authorities said were inconsistent with Jenkins’ account and the child died July 21. As of Aug. 26, a Marion County court docket continues to list a criminal case against Jenkins. No conviction or final adjudication was identified in the records reviewed for this report.

Author note: Last updated August 26, 2026.