A North East man who was watching his roommate’s 3-year-old son told the mother that the child, who is non-verbal and had special needs, was injured in a fall that he did not witness, according to borough police.
Medical examinations revealed a variety of injuries on the child that were not consistent with mere falling, police wrote in a criminal complaint filed on Thursday following a yearlong investigation into the incident.
The man, 25-year-old Joshua J. Burns, who was watching the child was arraigned Thursday afternoon on a felony count of endangering the welfare of children and misdemeanor counts of simple assault and harassment in the assault, which investigators said happened March 30 and March 31, 2022, at a residence in the first block of East Main Street in North East.
Burns was in the Erie County Prison Friday on $100,000 bond.
The child was taken to Saint Vincent Hospital after the incident and was later transferred to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, according to the criminal complaint. Injuries that were noted on the child during an examination in Pittsburgh included bruising on the ear and forehead; abrasions and scabs on the cheek and jaw; bruising on the arm, chest, back, and buttocks; and scabbed circular marks consistent with burns on the abdomen, back, buttocks and hip, investigators wrote in the complaint.
Investigators said the mother of the child told them Burns was watching her son while she was at work. She said Burns called her on March 30, 2022, and reported that the child had fallen, and that he picked the child up and held him. The mother said Burns called her the next day and said the boy was sick and congested, so he gave the child a shower, according to the complaint.
When police interviewed Burns in early April 2022, he admitted to disciplining the child by spanking him while his diaper was on but could not explain the severity of the injuries, investigators wrote. Police served a search warrant on Burns’ cell phone and found Google searches for hypothermia, cold stress and what can happen if a person is too cold for too long, according to information in the complaint.
When investigators interviewed Burns again in late August, Burns admitted to drug use and to spanking the child harder than he should have on March 30, 2022. He also admitted to “snapping” a towel at various parts of the boy’s body, police wrote in the complaint.
Detectives additionally wrote that Burns admitted to searching Google for “the effects of cold on bruising,” and said he intentionally held the boy under cold water in the shower for 5 to 10 minutes, according to information in the complaint.
Burns is tentatively scheduled to appear in court for his preliminary hearing on April 10.