The man who reportedly slit his infant daughter’s throat in a horrific case of child abuse in Bloomfield has been released from the San Juan County Detention Center and placed in a transitional living program in Albuquerque.
Joseph Bresch, 38, is charged with two counts of first-degree child abuse resulting in great bodily injury and one count of false imprisonment and battery against a household member investigated by the Bloomfield Police Department in 2021.
Special Prosecutor JoHanna Cox had filed a motion to keep Bresch in jail until his trial, which is set for Sept. 24 in Judge Curtis Gurley’s courtroom in the 11th Judicial District in Aztec.
“No conditions of release will reasonably protect the safety of another or the safety of the community,” Cox wrote in her motion, stating that Bresch “has demonstrated that he has a significant violent propensity towards innocent and defenseless civilians. He will not be able to safely reside in the community if he is not detained.”
Bresch’s former wife and the mother of the child abuse victim stated she was at the hearing and told the court she “would prefer him stay locked up,” Michelle Bresch said June 27 in a telephone interview with the Tri-City Record.
Despite the motion and the request from Michelle Bresch, Gurley released Bresch to the Diersen Charities Residential Reentry Center in Albuquerque, where he will reside with a GPS ankle monitor and be under house arrest except for work hours, court records state.
Bresch was ordered to complete a “community-based program which provides education and training in parenting,” complete 40 hours of community service, participate in mental health screenings and “have no contact with the alleged victims,” according to court records.
This provided Michelle Bresch with some protections, but she doesn’t believe she or her 2-year-old daughter can be safe with him out of custody.
“He instilled this fear into me,” Michelle Bresch said of her tumultuous marriage. “I had knives thrown at me, machetes thrown at me, guns pointed at my head.”
Michelle Bresch’s relationship with Bresch began when they were both 9 years old and living in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“He was my best friend,” she said, adding that they lost touch with each other when she moved away at age 16.
In 2017, when the mass shooting happened at the Mandalay Bay, they reconnected.
Michelle Bresch learned that he had been in and out of jail since he was 16 and served a prison sentence for child abuse. However, she said she was “intrigued” and believed his claims of innocence.
Their relationship rekindled, and he alienated her from family. He moved her to Farmington, where she didn’t know anyone. She wasn’t allowed to leave the house. She didn’t have friends. She didn’t have anyone, except Bresch and his friends.
Michelle Bresch said she made straw purchases of firearms for him and was briefly incarcerated.
She then made changes In her life, changes to protect her children: a 7-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl, who reportedly suffered severe abuse at the hands of Bresch, authorities said.
“I have sole custody of my kids back,” Michelle Bresch said, adding that she received the court documents June 27.
“It’s been a long hard fight. … It took so much to prove that I wasn’t the problem,” she said.
She said abuse happened throughout the relationship. It included mental and physical abuse and sexual assault, and she blamed him for the death of her unborn child.
The violent acts allegedly perpetrated by Bresch against both Michelle Bresch and his 2-month-old daughter were detailed in a nine-page affidavit for arrest warrant.
The baby was born premature and spent two months in the hospital before being released from San Juan Regional Medical Center on Oct. 8, 2021.
Michelle Bresch said she was afraid to take her home, and when the baby did go home, only two weeks passed before the infant was back at the hospital in critical condition, according to the affidavit.
Bloomfield Police discovered the abuse Oct. 24, 2021, when paramedics were called to the Bresch home in the 1100 block of Kathy Lynn. The medics called dispatch to report the child’s injuries were “consistent with child abuse,” the affidavit states.
When the child arrived at San Juan Regional Medical Center, she was in critical condition.
The “visible” injuries on the infant included a “bruise to the left eye, burst blood vessels in the left eye, malformation similar to cauliflower ear on the left ear, splitting skin and laceration to the back of the left ear, blood around the mouth and nose, swollen nose and eyes, bruise on the left scapula, broken ribs, severe diaper rash and most concerning was a laceration across the anterior neck near the base of the jaw,” the affidavit states.
Michelle Bresch said in the interview that the injuries to the infant’s face were from “him rubbing his goatee on her.”
There also was a 5-day-old slit to the baby’s throat, reportedly made with a razor blade that Bresch kept in his pocket. The cut was so deep “the underlying tissue and structures of the neck” were visible. It “exposed tissue of the esophagus and needed advanced treatment that only a hospital could provide,” according to the affidavit.
At the time the abuse was reported, Michelle did not tell police or hospital staff what was happening. She claimed Bresch “was always on the phone,” telling her what to say.
“Everything I said in those police reports were all stories I was told to tell,” she said. “The hardest battle I’ve had my whole life is to prove that I wasn’t a monster.”
Michelle Bresch said she tried to protect the infant by keeping her by her side, but when she would shower or sleep, she alleges Bresch would take the baby and harm her. “I wanted my babies to survive.”
“I would hover. He didn’t like it when I hovered,” Michelle Bresch said. “When I asked for her, he would throw her to me.”
She said there were numerous calls to Bloomfield Police, and she made several attempts to leave, and the abuse toward her would just “get worse and worse and worse,” every time she said something.
“Nobody listens, and they always want to blame the victim,” Michell Bresch said, adding she is now trying to piece her life back together.
She is in a new town with a new life and will continue to fight for her children.
She tells victims of abuse, “You have got to tell somebody. … There’s a way out and don’t back down.”
