Assault charge filed in young boy’s scalding

Published 10:55 pm Thursday, August 27, 2009

EVERETT — The little boy’s feet looked like he was wearing a bright red pair of socks.

Investigators believe the 18-month-old’s feet were intentionally immersed in a pot of boiling water, leaving him badly burned.

Prosecutors on Thursday charged Zachary Wilson, 18, with second-degree assault of a child in connection with the scalding. Wilson is being held on $250,000 bail. He was arrested Saturday after he brought the toddler to the hospital.

Detectives believe Wilson was watching the boy while the toddler’s mother, Wilson’s girlfriend, was at work.

Medical staff called police after Wilson’s explanation about how the child was burned was deemed inconsistent with the horizontal burn lines on the boy’s ankles, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Mark Roe wrote in charging papers.

Police said Wilson told various stories about how the boy was injured. Detectives said he told them the child knocked over a pot of water. He later said the boy was burned by water in a bathtub, court papers said.

The burns were inconsistent with those explanations, Roe wrote. There is no evidence of splashing, and the burns begin with a fairly straight line around the child’s ankles, court papers said.

“It resembled what it would look like if the child had stood very still in a pan of red paint that depth, then stepped out,” Roe wrote.

When detectives confronted Wilson’s about his versions of what happened, he allegedly began to cry and acknowledged that he immersed the boy’s feet in a pot of boiling water, court papers said.

He told police that he was afraid he’d lose his girlfriend because of what he had done, Roe wrote. The couple had been dating for about four months, according to police.

The child suffered second-degree burns. His injuries aren’t considered life-threatening, but it’s unknown if he’ll fully recover, Roe said.

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com.