DEERFIELD BEACH, Ga., Feb. 4 (UPI) -- A 38-year-old south Florida woman has been charged with child abuse for allegedly beating her daughter 15 years ago, then fleeing the country.
Broward County Judge John Hurley set bond at $25,000 for Raquel Knowles of Deerfield Beach Friday and ordered her to turn over her passport, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
It was unclear how police tracked down and arrested Knowles, the newspaper said.
A police report alleged she had beaten her daughter, then 3, in 1997, before leaving the country.
Knowles said she went to Jamaica in 1997 and returned to Florida in 2009.
Her daughter was taken to an emergency room for treatment of internal injuries, and when Knowles learned detectives were heading to the hospital, she fled, a police report said.
The police report said while the child was in surgery, Knowles told relatives to take care of her daughter because she was leaving town.
Reading from the police report, Hurley said, "You made statements to relatives [that] you'd messed up, it was your last chance to keep one of your children [and you] fled the hospital out the rear when you heard police were en route."
The report quoted the daughter as telling police, "Mama whooped me, mama hurt me. I wouldn't stop crying, mama did it."
And the report stated Knowles said she had "hit [her] daughter too hard."
The judge told her, "One thing for certain is that when you thought you were in trouble, you took off and you were willing to leave your daughter to save yourself."
He ordered Knowles to have no contact with her now-grown daughter.
