Dad Blames ‘Gas Bubble’ After Infant Nearly Beaten to Death for Crying, Police Say

A 26-year-old father in Indiana has been arrested on charges that he almost killed his 3-month-old daughter by beating her so badly that she couldn’t stop crying. Records show that Neil A. McCaffery was arrested on Wednesday and charged with one count of felony neglect of a dependent resulting in major bodily injury.

The Muncie, Indiana, Police Department got a 911 call about an unresponsive baby at a home on South Pershing Drive around 6 p.m. on May 8, 2025. Muncie is about 55 miles northeast of Indianapolis.

When first responders got to the scene, they said they talked to the child’s parents, who said the baby had a “gas bubble” stuck in her throat, according to WXIN, an Indianapolis Fox affiliate. They said that the child “went limp” and stopped responding when they tried to burp her.

Emergency medical workers at the scene thought the victim was having a seizure. The person was flown by helicopter to Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis for care. It was said that the baby had a bilateral subdural haematoma, which means that there was blood in the subdural space of both regions of her brain.

After doctors did emergency surgery to ease pressure on the baby’s brain a few days later, she had a heart attack and had to be put on a feeding tube. According to reports, doctors said that part of her brain “stopped receiving oxygen and started to die.” They think that she will probably have delays in her development because of this.

While they were at the hospital, detectives talked to McCaffery and the child’s mother, whose name was left out of the report. The Indianapolis Star Press reports that McCaffery allegedly told the interviewer that when he got home from work, his wife told him that their daughter had ‘a gas bubble stuck from eating’. He then allegedly took the baby to his bedroom and slapped her on the back several times to get her to burp.

A source told WXIN that McCaffery put the girl on his bed after she burped and “began to count money.” But after a short time, the victim’s father said he saw that she was “turning blue,” and his wife called 911.

Reports say that doctors told police that the child’s head injuries were consistent with trauma, most likely from “being shaken or thrown to the ground.”

Police say that McCaffery’s wife told them that their daughter was “crying uncontrollably” when he brought her into the bedroom. According to the Star Press, cops wrote that the baby “suddenly stopped crying” after being in the room for about four minutes.

The Delaware County Jail booked McCaffery, but he was freed after making a $20,000 bond. The case has not yet been set for its first hearing.

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