metro police
Christie Gritz and Leon Gritz
Wednesday, March 24, 2021 | 8:45 p.m.
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After the 8-year-old boy was found unresponsive, his father told officers that he’d tried to kill himself by drowning in the bathtub.
When officers told the boy’s mother that he had deep cuts and injuries — including a gash on his head that medics initially confused with a gunshot wound — she said the child had inflicted them himself, according to his parents’ Metro Police arrest report.
Leon Gritz, 27, and Christie Gritz, 28, were each being held without bail at the Clark County Detention Center each on one count of murder and child abuse and neglect, Las Vegas Justice Court logs show.
Leon Gritz reported the supposed drowning about 2 a.m. Saturday in the family apartment in the 2000 block of Torrey Pines Drive, near Lake Mead Boulevard, police said.
The child died at University Medical Center, police said.
Aside from the cut on the back of his head, which exposed bone, medical professionals found bruising on his forehead, neck and arms, and a swollen hand. He had bite marks on his forearms and ankle, and “u-shaped bruises” on his leg, according to the arrest report.
Christie Gritz described her son as being violent and blamed it on bullying at school. She said he was seeing a therapist but stopped during the pandemic. She said she saw the boy that early morning slam his head on a wall multiple times when he was in a bathtub, causing the gash on his head, and that he’d repeatedly hit his face with an ice pack, according to police. She said he’d tried to drown himself.
The woman denied that she or the boy’s father caused any of the injuries, according to the report.
The husband had a different story. He told detectives he feared his wife and that she was abusive to the boy, police said.
The household had two reports in 2019 with Clark County’s Division of Child and Family Services, according to a death disclosure.
One was a referral in October, while the other was a report the following month alleging abuse, the disclosure said. “Upon conclusion of the requisite investigation, the allegations were found unsubstantiated,” the document said. “The family was provided with information regarding community resources, and the case was closed.”
The report didn’t state which adults were contacted or regarding which child.
