When You Can’t Go A Week Without Turning Your Baby’s Brain to Mush

When You Can’t Go A Week Without Turning Your Baby’s Brain to Mush

Jasmine Rose Robin was born on April 30th, 2018, in Houston, Texas, to parents Katherine Wendam White and Jason Paul Robin Jr. Catherine had her first child, a girl she gave up for adoption when she was only 14 years old. The couple also shared another child, Jasmine’s 2-year-old brother, HR.

Jasmine was a fighter, born at just 29 weeks. She weighed only 2 pounds 15 ounces at birth. The first two months of her life were spent inside an incubator, covered in wires and tubes. A ventilator kept her underdeveloped lungs breathing, and a special light kept her warm in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Nurses fed her through a feeding tube and comforted her tiny little cries with a purple pacifier. Under the nurses’ constant care, her lungs got stronger, and she gained weight.

Despite her early entry into the world, Jasmine was born with a head full of dark hair, chub cheeks, and a sweet smile. Her grandparents, Jason Senior and Micah Robin, were smitten by their tiny granddaughter. They visited every weekend, talking to her and taking lots of pictures and videos. To keep her safe, they had to leave her in the incubator, but Micah couldn’t wait until the day she could finally hold her. On July 3rd, she was finally healthy and strong enough to go home with her parents.

In one of the videos the grandfather took at the hospital, Jason and Catherine seemed like loving parents. They paid attention to their daughter and spoke kindly to her. Jason seemed proud of his girl; he joked, “That’s my little girl, tiny little girl. My daughter came out kind of tan and early.” Catherine smiled and waved at the camera. They looked and sounded like a happy family. Staff at the hospital had no reason to suspect the couple; no agency had contacted them, and there were no visits from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, even though there should have been.

Jason and Catherine both used crystal and other drugs regularly. There was no indication that the baby tested positive, so Catherine stopped at some point before the birth, but still, it likely contributed to Jasmine’s early arrival. And the couple had other secrets that they weren’t sharing with hospital staff.

Jason had been in and out of trouble since he was 13 years old. He had been accused of abusing members of his family and ended up in a juvenile detention center. He also had been arrested several times as an adult for drug possession, theft, and evading arrest. The couple met in 2015 when Catherine was 16 and Jason was 19 years old. According to posts on social media at the time, they shared a love of weed, and they quickly began a relationship together. That year, Jason spent two days in jail for stealing a speaker, 10 days for showing a police officer false identification, and a total of 30 days for possession of a small amount of weed.

Catherine’s family did not approve of this relationship. Her grandmother, Virginia White, said, “He’s a drug addict, and we tried to keep Catherine away from him, and it didn’t work.” Jason’s parents didn’t approve of her either. Jason Senior said, “I really don’t know what to say except we told them they were toxic for each other. We tried to get them to split up.”

Despite their family’s wishes, around this time the couple began referring to each other as fiancé online, and in August of 2016, their son—we will refer to as HR—was born. Outwardly, the couple doted on the little boy, posting happy pictures of him on their social media pages. But in their day-to-day life, they were struggling. Catherine worked various fast food jobs to support the family. Her grandmother said, “Catherine just worked all the time, and Jason never did.” He was supposed to be watching the toddler, but as they both began using hard drugs, neither had the patience parenting requires.

Catherine was soon pregnant again. In March of 2018, the month before Jasmine was born, police received a report that Jason and Catherine were both hurting their 2-year-old son, HR. The anonymous caller said the boy had bruises all over his stomach, legs, arms, and butt because his father was hitting and kicking him and his mother was lifting up his shirt and pinching him. Police called DFPS and they opened up a report, but as is all too familiar in these cases, they didn’t follow up because they couldn’t find the family. The report stated neither of the child’s parents cooperated with the investigator or advised the local investigator of their new address out of town.

While DFPS was still searching for the family, police knew exactly where Jason was. Now, in early April, he was arrested again and charged with felony evading arrest. He bonded out but showed up at court a few days later. Because the police department, DFPS, and the court system weren’t sharing information, no one told the judge that the child protective agency really wanted to talk to Jason about potential abuse against a toddler. With no reason not to, the judge placed Jason on a deferred adjudication plan, which meant he was placed on probation, and he could have his crime removed from his record if he stayed out of trouble.

One week later, Jasmine was born. Two months later, she went home with her parents to a house they were sharing with three friends on Epti Drive on the south side of Houston. None of their family knew where they were living. The last time Catherine’s grandma knew where she was, she and Jason were living near Spring Branch, over three hours away. Jason’s parents tried to arrange a meeting, but they said the couple moved so frequently they had no idea where to go. Micah called every day to check on her granddaughter, but she felt helpless because she could not do more.

A few days later, the grandparents’ concern grew even greater: Jason and Catherine stopped answering their phones. In a picture they posted on social media, Jasmine had two black eyes and her head looked swollen. Jasmine’s grandfather said, “I was outraged. I was mad because something was going on. We tried to call and neither one of them would answer the phone, or they’d go straight to voicemail.” The frantic grandparents called DFPS twice and made reports, but unfortunately, they heard nothing back.

Jasmine’s grandfather was right; something terrible was going on. One of the friends sharing the house noticed blood on the baby’s bouncer chair. Jason told him the baby had a cut on her tongue, but he didn’t believe that—there was too much blood, and how did a baby without teeth cut her own tongue? Jasmine also had what another roommate described as a coughing and choking fit. After the fit, he noticed the baby stopped eating and drinking. He told Catherine she needed to take the baby to the emergency room, but Catherine said she was too tired and went to take a nap instead.

Over the next few days, Jason and Catherine described a number of unusual and disturbing events that would have made most parents call an ambulance or rush their child to an emergency room. On a few occasions, she wouldn’t take a bottle and acted unresponsive. She stopped breathing several times. Once, Jason was feeding her, and he claimed she choked on her bottle. He screamed for help and told his roommate that Jasmine had flatlined. In his own words, Jasmine was pale, her eyes had rolled back in her head, and the area around her eyes and her arms looked bruised.

The roommate gave her three chest compressions and one rescue breath before she finally coughed and started breathing again. But her breathing was shallow, punctuated by moments where she breathed harder and seemed to struggle. The roommate told Jason he needed to take her to the hospital, but Jason refused. The couple did eventually take her to see a pediatrician on July 10th, and the doctor noticed bruising around her eyes. Jason said she had choked on a bottle and said the bruising was from CPR. The doctor told them to take her to the hospital, but he said they expressed no interest. They decided to take her home instead.

Back at home, Jasmine stopped breathing again during a feeding. Jason said she kind of choked on an air bubble and had a big, big burp—a really hefty burp. This time, Jason performed CPR for 45 minutes before the baby started breathing on her own again. He claimed this extended CPR session left Jasmine’s ribs bruised, but the couple still didn’t take her to the hospital.

Around 2 in the morning on July 14th, Jason said he was feeding Jasmine when she, as he put it, started acting weird and went limp. He pumped her chest twice and blew in her mouth, and she let out a cough. She seemed fine after that, so he put her in her baby bouncer seat. She quickly fell asleep, and he went back to bed. While he and the baby were sleeping, Catherine got up and left for work. When he woke up at around 7 that morning, he said he found Jasmine with her eyes wide open and her tongue stuck in the back of her mouth. He repositioned her tongue, and she was able to eat a couple of ounces from her bottle and go back to sleep.

He fed her again about six hours later, but when he went to burp her, he said she didn’t seem right. He called Catherine and told her to leave work early because something was wrong with the baby. Catherine rushed home, and when she got there, she gave the infant a bath. Jason said Jasmine acted dazed out again after the bath. She swaddled her, and she fell back asleep. Finally, they decided to take her to the emergency room at the Memorial Hermann Hospital.

They told doctors there that Jasmine had been acting weird and didn’t want to eat, but doctors realized right away that something else was going on and they called the police. Jasmine was cold and unresponsive, and her swollen head indicated she was suffering from what doctors described as clearly inflicted head trauma, which had caused her brain to hemorrhage. She also had two black eyes, bite marks, and many broken bones all over her small body. She had been home with her parents for only 11 days. She was only 10 weeks old.

Though she was cold to the touch, doctors were able to restart her little heart and get her breathing again. Her grandparents, Micah and Jason Senior, rushed to the hospital again. All that Micah wanted to do was pick up her granddaughter and cradle her next to her heart, but the infant was hurt way too badly. She said, “I saw her that day. I gave her a kiss, and that’s all I could do. I had to leave. I wanted to hold her, and I didn’t get the chance to do that.” Over the next three days, doctors scanned her brain for signs of life, but found nothing. She had fought her last fight and was pronounced dead on July 18th at 4:42 p.m.

Detectives from the Houston Special Victims Unit wanted to talk to Catherine and Jason right away. Catherine refused and hired an attorney a few days later. She blamed the baby’s injuries on the hospital staff, then she changed her mind and blamed another woman who lived at the home, though that woman said she had never taken care of Jasmine.

Jason did talk to the police, however. He admitted that Jasmine’s compulsive crying made him incredibly angry. He said it would make his ears ring all the way to kingdom come and it got to his anger points. He would lash out by punching the grass or slamming a door, but he swore he never hit his daughter. Instead, he claimed he was reading psychology books to work on controlling his temper. He said, “I would never, for the record, never wanted to hit her. But if even for a second I wanted to, she is too beautiful to hit.”

The detectives also talked to the couple’s three roommates, who explained what they had witnessed while Jasmine lived with them. One roommate had an additional story: he told police that after the baby’s death, Catherine told her grandmother to arrange to get rid of all of Jasmine’s clothes and other belongings. She said if those items were still there, she would be sad when she comes back from the hospital.

Officers got a court order requiring the couple to submit samples of their blood for drug testing. Jason tested positive for amphetamines, crystal, coke, and weed. Catherine tested positive for weed. It should be noted that although legal in many states, possession, cultivation, distribution, and the use of recreational weed in Texas is still illegal as of the date of this recording in May of 2024.

The police were suspicious, but with no confession, they needed more evidence before making any arrests. They needed to know how Jasmine died and the extent of her injuries, which means they needed to wait for the autopsy to be completed. However, the procedure was much more complicated because the victim was an infant; many experts needed to be consulted and specialized testing needed to be performed. Many months would pass before the results were available. Meanwhile, Catherine and Jason were free.

One month after Jasmine’s death, Catherine was pregnant again with another baby girl. In October, they officially announced their engagement online, and some of Jason’s relatives posted messages welcoming Catherine into the family. Their social media was full of pictures of their son and of Catherine’s pregnant belly. Eventually, the DFPS investigation caught up with them, and HR was placed in foster care. In early April of 2019, a few weeks before Jasmine’s birthday, their daughter—who we will refer to as JR—was born, another preemie. She had to spend weeks in the NICU before she was healthy enough to go home.

On May 1st, Jason posted a birthday message to Jasmine. He wrote: “Yesterday was mine and Cat’s daughter Jasmine Rose Robin’s birthday, and yes, she would have been one year old. God in the heavens needed her back home for she had fulfilled her purpose, and it was just time. Today was downright the hardest day to try to make it through without just wanting to crawl in the fetal position, just balling my eyes out. It was bad enough that I was mostly silent through the whole day. Daddy loves you and misses you so much, baby Jasmine.”

Jason’s parents don’t think he killed Jasmine. Micah said, “Did he hurt her? Quite possibly. Did he kill her? I don’t see it because he’s the only one that ever showed any kind of compassion towards the kids.” Catherine’s grandmother didn’t think she could have done it either, pointing out that Jason was the primary caretaker of the children. She said of Jasmine, “Whatever she had to endure sounds just horrific. It’s really hard to wrap your head around it. Somebody needs to be held liable for this precious baby’s death, but I don’t think Catherine had anything to do with it at all.”

Despite their suspicions, all of them wanted to see justice for Jasmine, even if police found their family member responsible. Jason’s father, Jason Senior, said, “If he did it or she did it—I mean, if they implemented the death penalty, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings, and I love my son. But he took away something that I never got a chance to love. Love and you take a life and you give a life, that’s how I feel.” Catherine’s grandmother, Virginia, agreed, saying, “You need to be held responsible for the life of this child. I don’t care if it’s my daughter, if you did it, you have to put on your big girl panties and take responsibility.”

Thankfully, because of the substantiated abuse case, DFPS wouldn’t let Jason and Catherine have custody of their new baby, JR. When she was finally released from the NICU, she went home with Jason’s parents, Micah and Jason Senior, on May 23rd, 2019.

On June 24th, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences released the autopsy report to the Houston Police Department. From the contents, it was clear that Jasmine’s death was not an accident; someone had brutally beaten and shaken the infant, causing her death. On June 24th, Jason went to a court hearing. It was scheduled because he was still on probation for the charge of evading arrest that happened the week before Jasmine was born. After the hearing, he was arrested again, this time for her murder.

The next day, Catherine was arrested and charged with injury to a child by omission. Jason’s bond was set for $250,000, and he remained in jail. Her bond was initially set for $5,000, but was raised to $40,000 a couple of days later. She was released. Conditions of her bond stipulated that she was not allowed any contact with children, including her own son and daughter. She spent only two days in jail. After a grand jury indicted the couple in September, Jason’s charge was upgraded to capital murder, and Catherine’s charge was upgraded to felony murder.

Prosecutors accused Jason of shaking Jasmine and striking her with and against a blunt object in an act clearly dangerous to human life. Catherine was accused of intentionally and knowingly causing bodily harm by omission because she failed to seek prompt medical attention, failed to take Jasmine to the ER after the pediatrician instructed her to, and failed to have her eyes evaluated by an ophthalmologist after the pediatrician told her to, as well as generally failing to protect her. Catherine was also accused of striking her with and against a blunt object.

Finally, four years later, on June 22nd, 2023, Jason pled guilty to a reduced charge of first-degree murder. As part of his deal, he agreed to testify against Catherine. In a statement announcing the deal, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg—whom you may recall from our Samuel Olson episode—said, “We’re here to stand up for innocent victims, and it’s hard to imagine a more innocent victim than a newborn baby. Baby Jasmine deserved to live. We’ve worked hard since her death to get justice for her.”

Assistant DA Gilbert Sawtelle, the prosecutor in charge of the case, echoed her message at the sentencing hearing. He said child victims are the most innocent victims, so when anything happens to them, there’s no justification for it. Assistant District Attorney Sawtelle also explained that the terrible injuries that Jasmine suffered didn’t occur during one angry outburst. Instead, he said it was repeated traumatic events that this little girl in her short lifespan had to go through. Some of her injuries showed signs of healing, which meant her wounds were inflicted over the course of days in at least two separate incidents, if not many more.

Medical Examiner Dr. Paraic Gormley found a total of 96 fractures on the infant. It’s impossible to imagine the amount of pain she must have suffered. Her skull was fractured in two places. One of these head wounds was a fracture on the right parietal bone which measured 8.5 cm—that’s a crack almost three and a half inches long on a tiny newborn skull. Her ribs were broken in 71 places, and the long bones in her arms and legs were broken in 23 places. Some of the rib fractures showed signs of healing.

Her breathing was so shallow because every breath of air came with immense pain, and she suffered like that for at least several days. She was also bruised and battered. The doctor noted five distinct trauma areas on her right arm, six trauma areas on her left leg, and three trauma areas to her right leg. She had five bruises on her face, 10 on her scalp, and nine on her chest and belly. There were retinal hemorrhages in both eyes, and Dr. Gormley said her brain was markedly liquefied. She had old and fresh brain bleeds as well as old and fresh areas of bleeding on her spinal cord, indicating multiple episodes of injury. The most severe bleed covered the surface of the right half of her brain and extended along the base of her brain on both sides. She had bled so much from her brain that the blood pooled there. Her cause of death was blunt force trauma of the head with subdural hemorrhage and a skull fracture. A contributing factor was blunt force trauma to the torso and extremities. Her manner of death was homicide.

After pleading guilty, Jason was sentenced to 45 years in prison. He is not allowed to appeal and must serve at least 22 years, including time served while awaiting trial, before he will be eligible for parole. He is currently serving his time at the Gib Lewis Unit in Tyler County. He’ll be eligible for parole on November 3rd, 2041. If he serves his full sentence, he will be released on May 4th, 2064.

Catherine’s case has not yet gone to trial; she is still free on bond as of the date of the recording. Her next hearing is scheduled for August 7th, 2024. After Jason went to jail, Catherine began dating another man named Frank Nolly and had another baby. She was not allowed custody, and DFPS placed the baby with her sister. She had been in a rocky and volatile relationship with Frank for the last couple of years. In January of 2023, Catherine accused him of pointing a gun at her. He was arrested for felony assault of a family member, but the charges were eventually dismissed. In May, Catherine allegedly told him, “I’m going to kill you, and if you come to my house, I’m going to have my father take care of you.” She was arrested for making a terroristic threat, and Frank obtained a restraining order against her. She was quickly released on bond once again and has a hearing scheduled in August, around the same time as her hearing about Jasmine’s case.

Once the autopsy was complete, Jasmine’s family had a private funeral for her. It was the first time her great-grandmother Virginia was able to see her picture. The only image she has is the one on her funeral card, and she cherishes it. Beneath a photo of Jasmine’s sleeping face, pink letters spell out her name. The script below it says, “I haven’t really left you, although it may seem so.” Jasmine was cremated, and her grandparents, Micah and Jason Senior, kept her ashes. All of Jasmine’s grandparents struggle to make sense of the tragedy. Her great-grandmother mourned the life she would never live, saying, “I’ll never get a chance to meet her. I won’t see her graduate, none of it, and it’s heart-wrenching. It really is.”

Micah and Jason Senior were devastated and shaken, but grateful to be caring for their youngest granddaughter. He said, “Jason and Catherine both had violent tempers, but we never imagined this would happen. We lost a beautiful, strong angel who fought so hard to come home. We also lost a grandson to the system. I’m so very glad we got my granddaughter, who is loved and cherished every day.”

The couple thought DFPS could have saved Jasmine if they had tracked down the family in time. Micah said, “This could have been avoided if certain people would have done their job. There’s so many kids that could have been saved if DFPS and everybody else would have stepped in and cared, did their job, but they didn’t.” They both wanted to see changes at the agency. Jason said, “I don’t want what happened to our granddaughter to happen to somebody else. Some other little child that’s innocent to the world shouldn’t have their life taken from them because of somebody’s ignorance.”

Katherine Sibley, a representative from DFPS, pointed out that Jason and Catherine deliberately avoided the agency. She said they can’t remove a child until allegations are investigated, and they can’t investigate if they can’t find the family. She said until we have an intake that we can investigate, we cannot automatically pick up a child from a hospital once they’re born. And even once the family is located, there are legal hoops to jump through. She said the agency can’t remove children without involving the courts, and that process, she said, can take a long time.

Still, she admitted the agency was at least partly at fault. She said, “I think in this situation, while efforts are made, that hindsight’s always there where you wish you could have done just one different thing. In this case, that one different thing might have been ensuring communication between DFPS and the police.” The agency should have been able to find Jason once he was arrested and in police custody, but they missed their chance. The representative said that the agency had renewed their connection with law enforcement, and they are focused on keeping the lines of communication and collaboration open in the future.

As for the grieving grandparents, the DFPS representative said, “I don’t know if sympathy is enough for those families that have experienced a great loss. You can’t undo that. I can’t give you enough to make up for that. What I can say is that every day there are dedicated folks at this agency who are trying to leave a legacy for that child.”

Although they couldn’t help Jasmine, Micah and Jason Senior are taking good care of her little sister. Jason Senior said, “I’ll protect this little girl with my dying breath. I mean, nothing will happen to her, that’s guaranteed. The only thing that will happen is she will be cared and nurtured and loved and given everything I can give.” Though she never got to hold her older sister, Micah gets to hold and hug JR every day. She and Jason Senior still think of Jasmine all of the time. They have the purple butterfly blanket that was wrapped around her when she passed. They have her ashes inside two silver necklaces. Micah’s necklace is shaped like a heart, and the inscription on it reads: “God has you in his arms, I have you in my heart.”