ROCK HILL, S.C.,None — Four-month-old Owen Carduff's young life is moment to moment. He's in intensive care at Levine Children's Hospital following what sheriff's investigators call an assault by his father. They believe he was violently shaken at the family's Rock Hill home.
"He's fighting for his life," said the baby's grandfather, Larry Williams. On Wednesday, Williams and his wife Charlotte told Eyewitness News that their grandson would not be in the hospital if the Department of Social Services had acted sooner.
"If they had done an investigation my grandson would not be fighting for his life," Williams said. "It should've never gotten this far."
That's because the infant was at Levine Children's Hospital before, in early December. At that time he had bleeding on the brain, which doctors told the family was an injury caused by shaking. Larry and Charlotte Williams said DSS of York County spoke to their daughter and her boyfriend after that first incident, but didn't do enough.
"At that point right there they could've interviewed him at the hospital, and possibly gotten a confession then for that incident, and we wouldn't be in critical condition now," Charlotte Williams said.
On Monday, the father, 18-year-old Michael Carduff and the child's 19-year-old mother brought the baby to Piedmont Medical Center in Rock Hill.
They told police the baby was jerking and shaking uncontrollably.
The baby was transferred to Levine Children's Hospital, and within hours Carduff was arrested and charged with unlawful conduct toward a child. He is in jail with no bond.
The Williams' want to know why action wasn't taken after the first time the baby was hospitalized.
Eyewitness News contacted officials at the state DSS office in Columbia. They told us they could not comment on the case, and gave us this statement:
"The Department of Social Services is prevented by confidentiality laws from releasing information about its involvement with this family. The department is looking into the questions the grandparents have raised," said DSS spokeswoman Virginia Williamson.
It's not clear if the DSS investigation was still active following the infant's injuries and hospitalization five weeks ago.
Larry Williams says he knows there is blame for what deputies say Carduff did, but he didn't want to speak badly about the father of his grandchild.
"He knows what he did was wrong. He knows that." Williams said.