Dean R. Peruta (Credit: Willimantic Police Department)
A Connecticut father is facing murder charges after investigators say the injuries suffered by his 2-week-old son were impossible to explain as an accidental fall from a couch.
Dean R. Peruta, 40, of Willimantic, was served Tuesday, Sept. 15, at Danielson Superior Court with an arrest warrant charging him with murder of a victim under 16, murder, and risk of injury to a child in the December 2025 death of his newborn son, the Willimantic Police Department announced on Facebook.
A judge ordered him held on a $2 million bond. He is due back in court on Nov. 17.
According to the arrest warrant cited by NBC Connecticut, the nightmare started in the early hours of Dec. 21, 2025, at a Church Street home in Willimantic.
Peruta told investigators he took the two-week-old downstairs around 3 a.m. to feed him, fell asleep holding the baby on the couch, and woke to the child screaming on the floor, a fall he put at about three feet.
He said he was “scared” to tell the mother, claimed the crying stopped right away, and that the baby had a “normal diaper change.” He said he was not “overly worried” because the infant “appeared to have recovered quickly.”
The warrant also revealed the mother found the baby “a little cold” that morning, noticed he was lethargic and feeding slowly, and that Peruta insisted the child was “fine.”
He allegedly argued against calling 911 and later berated her over the cost of an ambulance.
Emergency crews later found a different scene. A firefighter who responded told police the infant had bruising on both sides of the head and blood coming from both ears.
Paramedics recorded an internal temperature of 81 degrees. The baby was rushed to Windham Hospital, then flown by LifeStar to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center with life-threatening head trauma, WFSB reported.
Medical staff documented a skull fracture, brain hemorrhage, stroke, retinal hemorrhages in both eyes, swelling, and internal bleeding. Doctors told investigators the injuries were “out of proportion” for a short fall from a couch and were consistent with inflicted, non-accidental, abusive head trauma.
The infant was declared brain dead Dec. 26 and taken off life support Dec. 27. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death blunt-force injury of the head. Manner of death: homicide.
On Tuesday, a judge ordered him held on a $2 million bond. He is due back in court Nov. 17.
He was already sitting in jail when the murder warrant landed. In May, police say Peruta broke into his ex-wife’s home, tackled her, choked her, and beat her head against the floor while she screamed for help. Officers forced their way in.
He was charged with attempted murder, home invasion, first-degree strangulation, and related counts.
In August, authorities added charges that he called the victim from prison in violation of a protective order. Combined bonds now sit at about $3.1 million.
The post Father Charged With Murder After 2-Week-Old Son Found Bleeding From Both Ears — Claimed the Newborn “Fell Off the Couch” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.