New Jersey - There were five other children living in the same apartment.
Published: Tue 22 Oct 2019, 2:34 PM
Updated: Tue 22 Oct 2019, 4:40 PM
Prosecutors dubbed a New Jersey home as 'house of horrors' as grisly truth about child abuse emerge after a mother-of-four admitted to scalding a three-year-old boy with boiling water.
Patricia Buchan, 29, poured boiling water over the boy's lower body as a 'punishment' because he urinated on her son's bedroom floor.
Buchan lived with five other adults, including her mother Mary, 55, and sister Bridget, 23, in a property on Clinton Place where they systematically began to abuse the child from July 2018.
According to a Daily Mail report, there were five other children living in the same apartment but it is unclear who the parents of these children are. All the five children, aged between one and six, and the three-year-old boy are now in child protective services custody.
'This child lived his first three years in a house of horrors. Today's plea resolves the case without the ordeal of the children having to testify', Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Morris said in a statement. Prosecutors said the abuse included a 'systematic and coordinated beating' of the boy with a belt and fists and the use of scalding water to punish him.
The three-year-old boy's mother, Natacha Smith, 44, Patricia Gamarra, 62, and Homer Searcy, 39, all faced similar charges for aggravated assault and child endangerment.
The abuse came to light after the boy's preschool nurse discovered burns and blisters on his legs and notified police, Daily Mail quoted NBC New York reports. Police are speculating there was drug activity going on in the house.
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