GREENFIELD — A Greenfield woman faces battery charges amid allegations she beat two children left in her care — including one with a disability — after the boys found and unwrapped Christmas presents hidden in her house, according to court documents.
Sascha D. Collins, 36, 944 Runnymede Drive, Greenfield, faces two Level 5 felony counts of battery, records state. She pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Hancock Superior Court 1 to the charges, each of which carries a maximum penalty of six years in prison.
The victims told police Collins threw them into a wall and hit them with a belt after she woke up to find newly unwrapped presents scattered around a room in her home, according to court documents. Investigators found red marks all over the children’s bodies they believe Collins caused when she hit them, through neither child was injured to the point they needed medical attention, according to court documents.
The victims’ teen sister told police Collins began drinking after she returned home from shopping late Saturday and went to sleep around 5 a.m. Sunday after crushing half a hydrocodone and snorting it, according to court documents.
The teen said she left Collins’ home for about 45 minutes around 10 a.m. Sunday, and Collins was still asleep.
When the girl returned, she found her younger brothers screaming in pain, she told officers.
The boys told police Collins hit them when she woke up to find they’d opened the Christmas presents she purchased and wrapped the night before, court documents state.
The boys, one of whom has a mental disability, told investigators Collins struck them in the face with a belt, slung them around the house and threw them into walls, court documents state. Both boys told police they were afraid to return to Collins’ home.
During an interview with police, Collins admitted to excessively spanking the boys but said she didn’t remember the details about what happened.
Collins said she woke up Sunday morning to find the house destroyed and repeatedly said she “just lost it,” telling investigators she knew she “went overboard,” charging documents state.
Collins told police she didn’t remember hitting the boys with a belt but thought she used a plastic spoon, records state. She denied throwing either boy into a wall and said she didn’t believe all the marks on the boys’ bodies were from her, saying they sometime fight with one other, records state.
Collins was arrested immediately after the interview with police. She was booked in the Hancock County Jail and held there until she was formally charged by prosecutors Tuesday.
She faces one Level 5 felony count of battery with bodily injury to a person under the age of 14 and one Level 5 felony count of battery on a disabled person.
She was being held in the Hancock County Jail on $2,000 cash bond at press time.
Her attorney, Christopher Isom of Greenfield, could not be reached for comment.