Cops Seek Man Charged With Badly Burning 3-Year-Old's Hands
MONESSEN, Pa. (KDKA/AP) - Police are searching for a Westmoreland County man who so badly burned a toddler's hands the boy couldn't use them for weeks.
Westmoreland County detectives on Tuesday announced charges against 23-year-old Fred Bacon Jr., of Monessen. He is the boyfriend of the boy's mother.
Detectives say Bacon told Monongahela Valley Hospital officials that the 3-year-old boy burned himself by running hot water over his hands after he returned from playing outside in the cold on Feb. 9.
Bacon told officials that the boy came in the house and turned on the water on his own.
But hospital staff sent the boy to UPMC Mercy Hospital with second-degree burns, where a doctor told police the burns couldn't have occurred the way Bacon claimed.
When interviewed by Westmoreland County detectives, they say Bacon changed his story, saying, "I accidentally burned his hands." They say he admitted to turning on the hot water when the boy came in from the cold, and when the child began to cry, he realized what he had done.
Online court records don't list an attorney for Bacon, who was still being sought by authorities.
He's charged with aggravated assault, child endangerment and reckless endangerment.
But Tuesday afternoon, Bacon had still not turned himself into police.
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(© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
