A man who severely burned his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son by holding his hands under hot water will be facing the possibility of life in prison when he is sentenced in September.
Daniel Morgan Gass, 23, of Stafford County, was convicted of four charges Friday in Stafford Circuit Court, including aggravated malicious wounding.
According to the evidence, Gass and 23-year-old Karen Lynn Reed were staying together in a Stafford motel when the incident took place sometime between Dec. 31 and Jan. 19. Frank said evidence showed Gass forced the child to hold his hands under scalding hot water for an extended period of time as a form of punishment.
The couple then relocated to Culpeper County, where someone contacted Child Protective Services and expressed concern about the boy. CPS workers made a welfare check Jan. 24 and removed bandages from the child’s hands.
The wounds were bleeding and the boy’s skin was peeling, Frank said, and the boy was immediately flown to the VCU Medical Center in Richmond. Doctors there determined that the child had been “tortured and grossly neglected” and discovered injuries in various stages of healing to the child’s spleen, pancreas and liver.
Gass and Reed initially told authorities that the child had fallen into a bonfire, but Reed later admitted that Gass had inflicted the damage. Reed is not suspected of hurting the child directly, but has been convicted for not seeking medical attention for her son.
The child has been placed in foster care.
Stafford man convicted for inflicting severe burns on girlfriend's 3-year-old son
A man who severely burned his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son by holding his hands under hot water will be facing the possibility of life in prison when he is sentenced in
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