A 23-year-old Western Slope man has been arrested in connection with the death of a toddler.
Daniel Lee Ryan was taken into custody Monday night as a suspect in death of 14-month-old Hailey Rocha, Montrose police said.
“It’s very tragic for the community and the family,” said Montrose Police Cmdr. Gene Lillard.
Ryan, the boyfriend of Hailey’s mother, was babysitting the girl on Saturday while the mom was working at a restaurant in town, Lillard said. Ryan took the girl, who was in distress, to the restaurant seeking help and an EMT, who was a customer there, began performing CPR.
Police were called to the business, in the 2000 block of South Townsend Avenue, on a report of an infant “not breathing.”
Officers and emergency service personnel arrived and Hailey was taken to Montrose Memorial Hospital where she was later pronounced dead.
An autopsy by the Montrose County Coroner’s Office found that Hailey died of “direct result of multiple traumatic injuries” and ruled her death a “homicide.”
“The cause of the death was blunt force trauma,” the coroner’s office said in a media release.
Ryan is being held at the Montrose County Jail on suspicion of homicide and child abuse resulting in death, police said.
His bail has been set at $150,000.
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
