Man charged with killing toddler he said choked on hot dog

Published March 17, 2016

A man who told police a toddler in his care choked on a hot dog was charged Thursday with killing her by fracturing her skull at a mobile home filled with trash and bugs, a prosecutor said.

Gary Foley Jr., 32, faces a homicide charge in the death of a 17-month-old girl in Walnutport last year, said John Morganelli, district attorney for Northampton County.

Foley called 911 on Feb. 24, 2015, and told dispatchers, "Something is wrong with my baby." He said he'd been feeding the child a piece of hot dog and put her on the floor to change her diaper when she began choking, according to Morganelli.

An autopsy detected the skull fracture. Morganelli said it's not clear how she suffered the fracture, but he added that Foley was the only adult at home with the child. Authorities waited to charge Foley while trying to develop more evidence in a case the prosecutor acknowledged is circumstantial.

Foley and the girl's mother, 27-year-old Heather Surget, also face child endangerment charges. They were living with three other children in a mobile home that authorities said had trash and bugs everywhere and had no running water. It wasn't clear whether Surget has an attorney.

Surget told police she met Foley online, and he had moved in with her about a week earlier, Morganelli said.

Both were arraigned Thursday. Surget was jailed on $100,000 bail. Foley was jailed without bail.

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