Deputies have caught a man they say beat a 1-year-old boy so badly that the child is now in the hospital on life support.

Officials said Brian Bouchard, 21, was caring for Isaiah Mitchell at the time of his injury last Saturday. Bouchard was living with the child’s mother. Deputies were told he had fallen, but the boy had severe head trauma, and his face was swollen and bruised.

The child is at Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando.
Deputies said a tip led them to Bouchard in Edgewater at about 10:30 p.m. Investigators said he was a passenger in a car stopped by deputies near Acee Drive and Tatum Blvd.
The mother of the child, Brittney Dishong, said she still doesn’t know why her now ex-boyfriend, who isn’t the baby’s father, would do something like this, but she did add Bouchard liked to drink, a lot.
Dishong said she came home from work Saturday and found her son not breathing and unconscious on the driveway.

“I may never be able to hold my son again,” she said.
“The amount of force it takes to break someone’s skull is not by dropping him,” said Cody Mitchell, the child’s father.
The family told News reporters, 13 doctors are saying the child’s injuries are not the result of an accident and that he was badly beaten.

Dishong said Bouchard, who’s also father to one of her two other children, had never been violent to her kids. She did say Bouchard likes to drink.
When asked if she thought he might’ve been drinking after she left that day, she said “Yes, I honestly feel he was drinking after I left because he smelled like a brewery.”
“If you’re not guilty, why are you running,” asked Michelle Miller, the child’s grandmother.
Family members said doctors have told them they are not sure if the 1-year-old will make it.
Bouchard will be held in Volusia County Jail. He has been ordered held without bond.