COEUR d’ALENE — A Rathdrum man is facing felony charges after prosecutors said he brutally beat his 11-year-old daughter with a belt and denied her medical care to hide the abuse.

Aaron Dyk, 32, is charged with two counts of injury to a child and a single count of aggravated battery, all felonies. Police originally booked him into jail after 1 a.m. Saturday on a charge of attempted murder. 

“This is absolutely horrific conduct,” prosecuting attorney Thomas Parrot said in court Monday.

Also on Monday, First District Judge Chris Schwartz ordered that Dyk be held on $500,000 bail. 

“I think it’s entirely appropriate, given the allegations here and given the evidence that was presented in the probable cause affidavit,” he told Dyk, who appeared in court via a video feed from jail. 

Schwartz also entered a no-contact order forbidding Dyk from contacting any of his eight children. 

The charges stem from Friday night, when first responders arrived at a medical assist on Highway 41 after Dyk reported that his daughter was having a seizure in his car. The 11-year-old girl was unresponsive when medical personnel reached the scene and transported her to Kootenai Health. 

At the hospital, medical staff told police that the girl had sustained “severe bruising to her buttocks, lower back, legs and arms,” according to court records, as well as other injuries from “considerable trauma, including behind her ears.” 

The injuries had caused the girl to go into kidney failure, and she was sent to Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane for further treatment, including dialysis, according to court records. The Rathdrum Police Department said she was in critical condition Saturday.  

When interviewed by police, Dyk allegedly admitted to beating his daughter with a leather belt off and on for about four hours on July 5. He said the lashing was punishment for misbehaving.

He told police he had dragged his daughter around by her ear and hit her across the head with the belt when she tried to cover her body with her hands, according to court records. 

Dyk’s wife, Melanie Dyk, who is the child’s stepmother, told police her husband “snapped” when he beat his daughter on July 5. She said she noticed the girl’s condition worsening in the days after the beating and observed significant bruising on the girl’s body, but didn’t report what had happened because Dyk is the family’s sole provider. 

By Wednesday, Melanie Dyk said she demanded that her husband take the child to the hospital. She said he refused because he would be arrested, according to court records. 

Dyk also allegedly admitted to striking his daughter with a belt “15 to 20 times” around Father’s Day, relenting only when she told him where she had put an item he claimed she took from a sibling, according to court records. 

Other children in the household told police that they sometimes received “normal” spankings as punishment from Dyk, described as a single strike with a belt, and didn’t sustain injuries from the treatment, according to court records. 

The children said their father beat the 11-year-old girl much more frequently and indicated Melanie Dyk had brought the other children outside during the July 5 beating so they would not witness it. 

An administrator from the girl’s school contacted the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare after news of Dyk’s arrest broke, according to court records. The administrator relayed that the girl’s family pulled her from school halfway through the year but did not remove their other children from school. 

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence or sexual abuse, reach Safe Passage 24/7 by calling 208-664-9303 or texting 208-449-7228.