State police accuse East Huntingdon woman of abusing 5-year-old girl

An East Huntingdon woman is accused of seriously injuring a 5-year-old girl last month, according to state police.

Shelbi Lee Richter, 28, was arraigned on charges of aggravated assault on a victim less than six-years-old, child endangerment and simple assault filed by state police in connection with the alleged Dec. 27 assault in apartment in Huntingdon Village.

Richter was ordered held in the county prison Friday on $10,000 bond.

Trooper Steven Dubich reported that the girl was taken to UPMC Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh for treatment of bruising on her face that extended from her left eye, across the bridge of her nose to the corner of her right eye.

Richter told investigators the girl was on the floor and asked for her blanket because she was cold. Richter told investigators that when she threw a blanket toward the child “a lighter flew out, striking her in the face,” Dubich reported.

“I observed photographs of the victim’s injuries which were not consistent with the defendant’s story,” Dubich said in court documents.

A doctor with the hospital’s child advocacy center, Dr. Jennifer Clark, concurred.

According to court documents, she told investigators last week that the injury was the result of impact trauma and “is consistent with physical child abuse.”

“Clarke advised that a (plastic) lighter was highly unlikely to cause that injury to the victim,” Dubich reported.

During a subsequent forensic interview at the Child’s Place, a child advocacy center in North Huntingdon, Dubich said when the girl was asked several times by an interviewer about how she suffered the injury, the girl replied “I forget” each time.

Richter has no prior criminal record, according to online court dockets. She did not have an attorney listed.