Authorities charged a Missouri couple with felony child abuse after they allegedly dropped their infant son and put him in a microwave.
Derick Boyce-Slezak and Mikala Boyce-Slezak, both 22 years old, were taken into custody and charged Tuesday after their son, who was less than four months old when the incident occurred in April, suffered second-degree facial burn and several head injuries, the Associated Press reports.
Court papers obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch show that the four-month-old had been taken to the hospital at the time for a rash on his face.
Doctors, however, discovered that the baby’s rash was actually a second-degree burn. Derick and Mikala claimed that the burn had been caused by a cleaning agent.
Upon further testing, doctors found that the baby boy also suffered from a fractured skull and a subdural hematoma, a head injury that causes swelling in the brain, according to the documents.
Mikala invoked the Fifth Amendment at the court hearing Monday, while Derick did not give testimony.
An employee with the Children’s Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services took the stand at the hearing and claimed Mikala had intended to testify that Derick dropped the boy on his head to imitate a television ad, causing the boy to suffer head wounds.
The employee added that Derick also placed the baby in the microwave for a “short period of time.”
The Daily Journal reports that additional testimony revealed that the baby suffered a fracture in addition to the ones already discovered.
Derick and Mikala are being held on $500,000 bond, and it appears that neither of them has hired attorneys.
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