In interrogation footage, an Indiana father told police he had been working on getting his home clean for his wife. But it was later that he found their infant son almost eaten alive by rats.
“Trying to be a good husband and make sure the house is clean for her,” David Schonabaum, 32, said in a video from Sept. 13, 2022. “She’s coming home to a clean house.”
But while the wife was out of the house, he and his sister-in-law discovered the baby horrifically injured. According to Schonabaum, the sister-in-law pointed out, “It’s the fingers.”
David Schonabaum (Evansville Police Department).
As previously reported, investigators said the baby was missing flesh from the fingers and thumb on his right hand, even exposing bone on all five of the fingertips. He had more than 50 bites to his forehead, cheek, and nose, not to mention other bites on his arms, legs, feet, and toes, authorities said.
Schonabaum is currently serving a 16-year prison sentence, having been found guilty of three counts of child neglect — one for the baby and two for the other children in the Evansville house. Meanwhile, the mother, Angel Schonabaum, pleaded guilty to one count of neglect of a dependent, received credit for a year of time served, and got three years of probation under a suspended sentence.
In the footage, David Schonabaum said that regarding the bites, the first explanation that popped into his head was the rats: “Instantly, it was the rats because that’s the only thing that could have been in that room all night.”
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He acknowledged having significant rat problems in the home and insisted he hired Terminex to attempt to fix it.
No one in the home had been bitten by rats before, he maintained.
Jason Kandel contributed to this report.
