Apartment complex on Clayton Avenue in Pittsburgh (WPXI).
A Pennsylvania man is behind bars for allegedly taking a clothes iron and burning 60% of his girlfriend’s body because he thought she was cheating on him.
Burton L. Byrd proceeded to hold the woman captive in their Pittsburgh appointment from Saturday to Tuesday, not allowing her to leave to seek medical attention, a probable cause arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime said. When he did release the alleged victim, he told her to make up a story about being assaulted near a Wendy’s and threatened to hurt her family if she spoke the truth, according to the affidavit.
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Pittsburgh cops responded to the hospital around 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday about a report of a possible domestic violence situation. The woman told police she and Byrd were at their apartment on Saturday when he accused her of infidelity.
“He figured he would punish me,” she told cops.
Byrd allegedly forced the woman to strip naked and tied her hands together with shoelaces. He began beating her with a belt and punching her in the face, cops said. Officers noted the woman had bruising around her eye and broken blood vessels in her right eye, suggesting she had been struck several times in the face.
The victim alleged that Byrd then plugged in the iron and started tapping it on her body. After saying the iron “wasn’t hot enough,” he proceeded to wait until it heated up and then held it on various body parts while demanding to know if she had relations with another man, police said.
“And I kept on saying no, I didn’t cheat on him,”” the woman recounted, according to the affidavit. “So after about maybe six times of him hitting me with the iron, I just made up a story telling him that I cheated on him just to get him to stop.”
The torturous attack occurred over a period of four hours, according to the affidavit. After he stopped burning her, he tried treating her injuries with gauze, cops said. She insisted on going to a hospital, but he allegedly wouldn’t let her. After going to one hospital, she was transferred to a hospital with a burn unit, cops said. The victim is expected to be in the hospital for at least two weeks.
Byrd is facing a slew of charges including aggravated assault, kidnapping, witness intimidation and false imprisonment. It’s unclear if he has an attorney.
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