A stepmother in North Texas intentionally set her 5-year-old daughter’s face on fire by pouring rubbing alcohol on it and lighting it with a lighter on May 27, said police.
The crime came to light when police responded to a call about the 5-year-old girl needing medical attention for burns on her face.
Police questioned the stepmother and found inconsistencies in Jimenez’s story. At first she said the child got too close to a candle and burnt her face a couple days earlier. Later, she confessed that she was trying to punish the child for yelling and intentionally burnt her face.
The child’s father was not at home when the crime was committed and is not expected to be charged in the case.
Mother Fakes Daughter’s Illness
In another bizarre case involving child abuse by a mother, a woman in Oklahoma City was charged with physical abuse of a child after she faked to medical practitioners that her 10-year-old daughter was ill.Doctors found the child to be under shock and suffering from acute renal failure, organ damage, and acidosis. According to the criminal complaint, the child was in a hospital in Oklahoma for another severe infection five weeks prior.
While the child was in the Milwaukee hospital, Newman told doctors that her daughter suffered from various ailments. She also told them that the child had a pacemaker, an IV port, and a feeding tube.
The doctors were alarmed by what the mother shared because the child was treated earlier in the same hospital in 2016, and some illness that Newman described were found to be misleading.
“There is a high degree of concern on the part of multiple medical providers that the (initials redacted) girl is the victim of factitious disorder by proxy on the part of the defendant (Newman),” Alyssa Stephany, medical director of Pediatric Hospital Medicine for Children, told the Journal Sentinel after reviewing the child’s medical records.
The concerned doctors analyzed the child’s previous health records and saw that Newman had taken the child to various health care providers in Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Tennessee, leading to various unnecessary treatments.
According to the court documents, the child didn’t suffer from any rare or fatal illness and didn’t need a pacemaker. The documents also said that the child does not need a port, which has exposed her to various infections, reported CBS 58.
The mother faces 27 years in prison and $75,000 in fines.
