[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
New details are coming out about Taylor Frankie Paul‘s 2023 domestic violence arrest.
As Perezcious readers know, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star was arrested three years ago following an altercation with her baby daddy, Dakota Mortensen, in which she hit him and threw metal chairs at him. One of those chairs ended up hitting Taylor’s then-5-year-old daughter, Indy Paul, whom she shares with ex-husband Tate Paul. Last week, footage of the incident dropped, resulting in the reality star’s season of The Bachelorette getting cancelled.
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New body cam footage of a cop’s phone call to Taylor’s mom following the arrest has now emerged. In a video obtained by TMZ on Friday, an officer from the Herriman City Police Department contacted Liann May to urgently ask her to check on Indy for any visible injuries around 3:00 a.m. on February 18, 2023. The cop explained he was reviewing cellphone footage of the incident, saw that the child had been hit with the metal chair, and was worried about a possible head injury or concussion.
Liann claimed Indy “was fine” when she saw her. And when the grandmother checked on the kid, she told the officer that “there’s nothing” — “no bumps or anything.” Liann added:
“She looks fine.”
However, as you know, the police report indicated the child had a “goose egg on her head.” Whether the grandma could really tell if one was there at the time is unknown, but she stressed that Indy appeared OK. The officer still advised Liann “to watch” the child before expressing concern about her well-being:
“I’m worried about injury. I didn’t know this happened until after the fact, otherwise I would have probably had paramedics come out to check her out just to be sure, because sometimes child injuries don’t show up as obvious as adult ones, if that makes sense. So keep an eye on her, OK? And yeah, we’ll go from there. Thanks for taking my call so early in the morning. I just felt like this probably wasn’t one that should wait.”
Watch the footage (below):
Oof. Our hearts just break for Taylor’s kids throughout all of this…
Interestingly, audio recordings obtained by People revealed Tate later accused Liann of “coaching” Indy following the incident. He told an officer on February 24, 2023, one week after Taylor’s arrest:
“The grandmother, is, you know, obviously there’s a conflict of interest with her because it’s her daughter that did this. I’ve noticed she’s already tried gatekeeping — not gatekeeping — but, like, she’s coaching my daughter and saying specific things.”
Yeah, not OK if true. During the phone call, Tate confirmed Indy sustained an injury to her head, calling it a “goose egg” to the police, which matches the police report. He told the police, however, that he couldn’t photograph the bump due to its small size and her hair. He then requested cops to reach out to him about the investigation moving forward, not Liann. Yikes.
Reactions, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments (below).
If you have sincere cause to suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available. Consider calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233, or text START to 88788, or go to https://www.thehotline.org/.
[Image via Hulu/YouTube, Tate Paul/Taylor Frankie Paul/Instagram]
