Newly released juvenile court documents offer details as to what is said to have happened leading up to a 2-year-old boy being seriously burned and that boy’s stepfather charged.
Centerville police launched an investigation April 26 after Kaeden Ashburn, 2, was taken to Dayton Children’s Hospital for “severe scalding burns,” according to Centerville police officer John Davis.
Montgomery County Children’s Services received a referral for Ashburn’s case the same day, because he “sustained submersion burns on 95 percent of his body,” according to juvenile court documents.
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The burns were said to have happened at an apartment on Loganwood Drive.
Court documents filed by children’s services indicated that William Lindsey was taking care of Ashburn while the boy’s mother was at a doctor’s appointment.
Lindsey was reported to have “placed [Ashburn] in the bathtub after the child defecated through his clothing,” the documents read.
Lindsey was arrested by police after he was indicted on charges of felonious assault, endangering children and tampering with evidence last month in connection to the scalding incident.
According to the documents, Lindsey left Ashburn in the bathtub to care for another child at the residence and when he returned Ashburn’s “skin was bubbling and peeling.”
Children’s services reported that Lindsey did not call 911 and the child was not taken to the hospital until his mother returned home.
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Lindsey told investigators “that the water was not hot” when he put Ashburn in the bathtub “and he claimed that he called a nurse after he took the child out of the bath,” the documents read.
Investigators said Lindsey’s account of what happened was inconsistent with Ashburn’s injuries and not true, according to the documents.
Children’s services is seeking an interim guardian for Ashburn, who investigators said was expected to be released from the hospital last week.
Lindsey remains in the Montgomery County Jail on a $525,000 bond and is expected back in court Sept. 15.
