Texas Woman Accused Of Poisoning Child With Salt

HOUSTON (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — A Texas pediatric nurse has been arrested for feeding her own daughter such a dangerous amount of salt that the child had to be hospitalized.

Harris County sheriff's spokesman Alan Bernstein said Thursday that 31-year-old Katie Alice Ripstra is charged with two counts of injury to a child/serious bodily injury. A probable cause affidavit says the girl, now 4, suffered a brain injury because of the excessive amount of salt Ripstra fed her. The girl has since recovered and is no longer in her mother's custody.

Bernstein says Ripstra took the child last year on four separate occasions for treatment at the hospital where Ripstra worked.

He says the woman's motives are not clear.

Ripstra bonded out of jail Wednesday. Online records did not indicate an attorney for her.

In 2007 another Texas mother, Hannah Overton, was given a life sentence for the salt poisoning death of a 4-year-old foster child she was trying to adopt.

(©2014 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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