Tuesday, Oak Harbor police caught a man accused of raping a 2-year-old child after he had been hiding in the apartment of the victim’s mother, according to Detective Teri Gardner.

Police also arrested the 29-year-old woman on suspicion of felony rendering criminal assistance.

Jordan Baze, a 25-year-old Oak Harbor man, was wanted on a $250,000 bench warrant out of Island County Superior Court. The judge ordered the warrant after Baze didn’t appear for a hearing Monday.

Prosecutors charged Baze Feb. 26 with rape of a child in the first degree. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years and three months in prison under the standard sentencing range.

“The charged acts are hideous in this case,” Deputy Prosecutor Eric Ohme said in court.

Baze is accused of raping the toddler and causing an injury that required her to be transported to Children’s Hospital in Seattle, where she received 26 stitches, Gardner wrote in the affidavit of probable cause.

Baze has maintained his innocence and he’s apparently not the only one who says so.

“The mother of the alleged victim does not believe this event occurred,” said Frank Lockhart, the Coupeville attorney representing Baze.

According to the report, the child’s mother called 911 last September to report that the 2-year-old girl had blood in her diaper and glue on her face.

The woman reported that she placed the sleeping girl on a bed and went to the laundry room, leaving the child alone with Baze, her live-in boyfriend, the report states.

The mother said Baze ran to get her in the laundry room, saying the girl was crying because she had glue on her face. After cleaning off the glue, the mother went to change the child’s diapers.

She “opened the diapers and ‘freaked out’ when she saw blood in the diapers,” the report states.

According to Gardner’s account, the case against Baze appears largely circumstantial, though she said there is evidence still being processed at the state crime lab. Only Baze was alone with the girl during the period in which she could have been injured — though the mother claimed she was only gone for two minutes, the report states.

A neighbor reported hearing the baby “scream bloody murder,” Gardner wrote. Soon after, Baze came to the woman’s apartment and told her the child was upset because of the glue.

Gardner said it appears that Baze squirted the glue on the baby, though she said she had no idea why he might have done it.

“Baze continued to change his story throughout the investigation,” the detective wrote.

When Baze didn’t show up in court Monday, Gardner said the police went looking for him. They heard that he may have returned to the apartment of the victim’s mother, Gardner said. She explained that the toddler was staying with other family members.

The police knocked on the door of the SE Barrington Drive apartment Tuesday, but nobody answered. Gardner said the officers “backed off” and soon they saw Baze walking from the direction of the apartment. After a very brief foot chase near the Acorn Motel, they nabbed Baze.

In court Wednesday, Ohme argued that Baze should continue to be held on a large bail amount. He read a handwritten note found on Baze in order to illustrate his state of mind.

“I am here to devastate and destroy everyone in my way. I am pain,” Ohme read.

Judge Vickie Churchill set the bail at $250,000.