Provo man tells police he hit his baby’s head against a wall to make her stop crying

A Provo man has been arrested after he allegedly hit his 3-month-old baby's head against a wall and punched her in the head to make her stop crying.

Michael Chad Hill, 38, was booked into the Utah County Jail for investigation of two counts of child abuse, second-degree felonies.

According to a probable cause statement, Provo police were contacted after the baby was brought to Primary Children’s Hospital with a skull fracture that “started above the left ear … and went around the top of her head”; brain bleeds “fresh and old”; and bruising on her head and and bottom. Hill told police he dropped the baby “and that she may have hit her head on the metal legs of [a baby] swing.”

Hospital staff told the officer it was “highly unlikely” the injuries were caused by such a fall. When questioned a second time, Hill “admitted that he hit his 3-month-old daughter's head against the wall because she was crying”; that he hit her “in the back of her head with a closed fist”; and that he “spanked her approximately 10 times on her buttocks.”

Hill also told police he punched the baby in the back of her head two previous times.