An Oregon City daycare provider is accused of abusing a four-month-old boy last week and the baby's parents are torn up over the fact that they put their child in her care.

Police believe Sierrha Schlagenhaufer, 33, broke Kayden Horton’s arm last Friday.

“There's nothing, no amount of justice that can be realized for hurting a child this small. He’s a defenseless, four-month-old baby,” Kayden’s mother, Rebecca told KGW.

Investigators said Schlagenhaufer confessed to losing patience with the child and hurting him. But her husband later rebuked that confession and said she was coerced into it and the truth was that she had accidentally fallen on the boy.

“They completely harassed her and forced her into that [confession] they convinced her that the only way she was not going to go back to jail Sunday night was to put a story together that matched the baby's injuries,” Dirk Schlagenhaufer said.

In the confession, “detectives learned that she became frustrated with the child, held him up by the arm, jerked him out to her side by his arm and heard a pop. After the child was inconsolable, Schlagenhaufer cast the child onto the floor by the broken arm,” according to Sgt. James Band with the Oregon City Police Dept.

Dirk also argued that detectives did a poor job of investigating and said as far as he knew, Kayden’s arm was not X-rayed at the first emergency room he was taken to.

Dirk and his wife plan to pursue a plea deal, but the Hortons want serious consequences.

“She got to pay for what she's done. There's nothing, no amount of justice that can be realized for hurting a child this small," Rebecca said.

Schlagenhaufer runs the daycare out of her home but she did not have a business license, which means she was not approved to babysit more than three kids at a time. Records showed that Schlagenhaufer had applied for, undergone and passed a background check for those who want to work in child care. But after her arrest, she was suspended from that approved list.

Schlagenhaufer called the boy’s mom after the incident and his mother picked him up at the daycare and took him to Legacy Emanuel Children’s Hospital where doctors diagnosed him with a spiral fracture of the upper right arm.

kgw.com photo

Sierrha Schlagenhaufer as shown in a police mug shot.

Schlagenhaufer was arrested four days later and lodged in the Clackamas County Jail for Assault III and Criminal Mistreatment I.

Kayden’s dad, Wendell, said it’s difficult to see a cast on his little boy’s arm and not feel torn up about it.

“It was like someone ripped out my chest and took out my heart,” he said. “As a parent, it's your worst nightmare that you put your child in a situation where they are injured by somebody that you've chosen to care for them.”

Officials with the Oregon Department of Employment also said they were investigating to determine if she was caring for too many children at once.