Dad who couldn’t ‘control himself’ inflicts 60 combined fractures on 3-month-old twin boys

Injuries to infants will likely result in permanent disabilities

Inset: Dylan Raymond Strain (Ramsey County Jail). Background: The 800 block of Woodbridge Street in St. Paul, Minn., where Strain abused his twin sons (Google Maps).

A Minnesota man is headed to prison after he inflicted 60 fractures on his 3-month-old twin sons that will likely cause them to have lifelong issues.

The brain injuries to the one infant will likely result in permanent disability, including vision loss, the complaint said, adding they “caused significant risk of death.”

Dylan Raymond Strain, 20, pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree assault with great bodily harm and was sentenced to just under 16 years behind bars on Monday.

The investigation began when the twin boys were brought to the hospital with signs of abuse. One of the boys was suffering from seizures and “very low oxygen saturation levels,” a probable cause affidavit said.

A CT scan and more evaluation uncovered bleeding on the brain and more than 46 fractures, some of which were healing, throughout his body.

The infant’s twin brother was also evaluated, showing bruises to his forearms and abdomen, 14 fractures, and burst blood vessels to both eyes consistent with abusive trauma, according to a criminal complaint against Strain.

Police learned the infants were born prematurely on Oct. 2. One boy arrived home in St. Paul on Dec. 11, and his twin went home 23 days later.

They lived with their mother, Strain, their maternal grandmother, and her two other children, ages 7 and 9.

Although it was never reported and apparently no one intervened, the grandmother told investigators that Strain “(doesn’t) know how to control himself.”

She said that shortly after the second baby came home from the hospital, she saw him screaming at both infants.

She reported that she found “a punch mark in the wall” of the babies’ room and heard hysterical crying from the room more than once.

When she saw a cut on a lip on one of the infants, Strain told her he had jabbed a bottle or pacifier too hard into the baby’s mouth.

Officials also said the twins’ maternal grandmother told them, “My grandbabies are in the hospital because some man doesn’t know how to control himself.”

The infant’s mother told police that whenever something happened to the twins, it was on Strain’s watch. She later tried to take responsibility for some of the injuries, but medical professionals said it was doubtful that the injuries were caused by the actions she described.

“She (the mother) described that Strain would hold the babies on his lap,” cops wrote. “He would yell and ‘bounce’ the babies on his lap ‘very fast.’ She agreed that the babies’ arms and legs would flail around during these incidents. She immediately grabbed the babies from him when she would see that.”

Text messages between the couple showed Strain admitted he struggled when watching the kids.

Under Minnesota law, a conviction for first-degree assault, which covers assaults that inflict great bodily harm, carries a maximum possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison, with actual punishment guided by state sentencing guidelines, according to the Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. Strain’s 189-month sentence falls below that legal ceiling but reflects the severity prosecutors described in their filings.

Thoughts ? Comments? Wow! Not even the max prison time.

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