A California barber has been charged with murder, child abuse, and torture after he allegedly beat a 6-year-old boy to death for peeing in his pants.
Ernest Lamar Love, 41, was babysitting Chance Crawford on August 29 while his mother worked at her job as a nurser’s assistant at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Orange County, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said. The mother dropped the boy off at Love’s barbershop in Placentia at about 6:30 p.m.
Love reportedly later took the boy to a local park, and at about 10:30 p.m., surveillance video showed Love walking into his barber shop carrying “a large piece of raw lumber with a reluctant Chance following behind him.”
Three hours later, Love carried the boy into the emertency room at Children’s Hospital of Orange County. The boy was unconscious and struggling to breathe.
“Doctors at CHOC discovered that much of Chance’s flesh was missing from his buttocks, leaving raw, gaping wounds, along with subdural hematoma, extreme brain swelling, and other injuries consistent with violent shaking,” the district attorney’s office said. “The little boy also had healing fracture on his shoulder blade.”
The first grader died on Tuesday.
The district attorney’s office says Love beat the boy with the piece of lumber and poured hydrogen peroxide on his open wounds. Then he forced him to do do push-ups, sit-ups, and jump jacks until he collapsed.
“While his new classmates were celebrating the end of the first week of first grade, Chance’s seat in his classroom was empty as he fought for his life in a hospital bed,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “Words do not exist to describe the absolute terror this little boy was forced to endure – all at the hands of someone who was supposed to be protecting him, not torturing him to death.”
Love has pleaded not guilty, Law&Crime said, and is being held without bond. He faces 32 years to life in prison if convicted on all counts.
