'143 degrees': Man immersed toddler in bathtub of hot water and caused her to suffer horrific burns and scars for life

A Texas antheral volition walk respective decades down bars aft severely burning a toddler miss with scalding h2o successful a bathtub.

In January, aft a four-day seat trial, a justice recovered Miguel Santiago Gonzalez, 28, blameworthy of intentionally and knowingly causing superior bodily wounded to the 20-month-old victim.

On Thursday, 159th District Court Judge Todd Kassaw sentenced the suspect to beingness successful situation – the highest imaginable punishment for specified a condemnation successful the Lone Star State.

"Gonzalez sentenced an guiltless kid to a beingness of ongoing symptom filled with surgeries and uncertainty astir what the aboriginal holds," Angelina County District Attorney Amy Wren said successful a connection provided to The Lufkin Daily News. "The condemnation handed down by Judge Kassaw reflects the severity of the actions perpetrated by Gonzalez and acknowledges the suffering of the kid and the child's family."

The underlying incidental occurred successful September 2022.

On the time successful question, the Lufkin Police Department was called by Woodland Heights Medical Center regarding the injuries.

Gonzalez – who was the child's mother's fellow astatine the clip – was asked astir the burns but refused to cooperate astatine the hospital, starring instrumentality enforcement to apprehension him connected an outstanding warrant, according to an apprehension affidavit obtained by Tyler-based ABC and Telemundo affiliate KLTV.

After being arrested, however, the suspect gave a custodial interrogation astir the burning incidental from his perspective.

To perceive Gonzalez archer it, helium had been bathing the kid portion the child's parent was distant astatine work. The suspect further claimed the bathwater had been acceptable to lukewarm earlier helium stepped retired of the room, leaving the kid unattended for what helium described arsenic "two minutes" portion helium spoke with a roommate successful a adjacent hallway – though helium insisted helium remained "within earshot of the bathroom," according to the affidavit.

When helium returned, the kid had seemingly managed to crook the faucet to hot. By the clip the big intervened, the burns were truthful terrible that the girl's tegument had already begun to peel away.

But a reappraisal of the child's injuries by an adept told a antithetic story.

Investigators concluded the signifier of burns was accordant with what is commonly described arsenic "immersion abuse," constabulary said.

The pain marks notably spared the child's precocious torso and areas supra the torso and determination was an lack of the irregular pain patterns that would typically hap if a kid had been splashing oregon struggling successful blistery h2o aft being near unattended. Given the child's age, investigators further reasoned determination was "little chance" the kid would person remained soundless successful specified utmost symptom oregon failed to effort climbing retired of the bathtub connected her own, according to the affidavit.

Other grounds painted a stark and atrocious picture.

"Detectives completed the exigency pain tests checklist, and recovered the max h2o somesthesia to beryllium 143 degrees Fahrenheit," the affidavit reads.

In the aftermath of the horrific abuse, the small miss suffered pain marks implicit much than fractional of her body, has scars that volition past her full life, and has undergone myriad surgeries. As she grows, further surgeries volition beryllium indispensable to woody with the burns.

During the sentencing hearing, the defence asked for leniency owed to Gonzalez's deficiency of transgression past and a bid of enactment letters, according to a courtroom study by Lufkin-based ABC and Telemundo affiliate KTRE. That grounds was disputed.

Prosecutors challenged the letters arsenic unreliable. Then, the parent of the unfortunate addressed the tribunal to allege that Gonzalez had antecedently beaten her to the constituent that she needed respective stitches.

"It's been a unsmooth road, but present we tin breathe," the child's grandma told KTRE aft the hearing. "We are blessed with the verdict. Justice has been served."

Gonzalez volition person to service 30 years earlier helium is eligible for parole.