A pair of Oklahoma women have been arrested for allegedly beating and torturing a five-year-old boy so badly that he has had two strokes since being placed in the hospital.
Police in Muskogee, OK, arrested the boy’s mother, Rachel Stevens, 28, and his “stepmother,” Kayla Jones, 25, for what doctors say appears to be months of vicious child abuse.
The case ended up with the police after the child was transferred from a Muskogee clinic to St. John Medical Center in Tulsa because of lesions on his face and a series of seizures. But when he got to Tulsa, doctors became suspicious over his injuries and determined that he was abused and not just suffering some sort of ailment as claimed by the lesbian couple.
Doctors soon testified to police that the boy’s abuse was so bad that he has suffered two strokes since being hospitalized in December.
Authorities charge that since the two women became involved 18 months ago, the boy’s abuse has been constant. Doctors say that he has multiple broken bones in various stages of healing and was malnourished when police took him from the pair.
In court documents, the child indicated to police that he had been repeatedly tied up, confined with duct tape, locked in a small room for extended periods of time, and that both women would periodically beat him sometimes with a belt. He said his own mother once smashed his hand with a hammer and his “stepmom” kicked him in the groin hard enough to cause bleeding.
Muskogee County District Attorney, Orvil Loge, said of the shocking case, “Anytime you have child abuse or sexual abuse of a minor child, it’s always difficult because we’re dealing with such an innocent victim.”
The women, though, have claimed that the abuse was somehow self-inflicted, that the boy was constantly “falling down” and getting hurt.
According to News On 6, the pair had even started a GoFundMe page dedicated to raising money to help pay their child’s hospital expenses incurred because he was having “seizures” of an unknown cause.
The page has since been taken down.
The two women have both been charged with felony child abuse by injury and child neglect and are being held in the Muskogee Jail.
Stevens has two other children who have also been taken into custody by authorities.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.