Texas Couple Charged After Toddler Scalded With Boiling Pasta Water

SAN ANTONIO, TX — A San Antonio mother and her boyfriend are facing criminal charges after police say they abused her 2-year-old son for months, including pouring boiling pasta water on him, and failed to report his injuries.

Tyreesha Robinson, 32, and Devien Wheeler, 31, were arrested and charged with injury to a child after investigators uncovered a pattern of assaults that left the boy hospitalized with third-degree burns, according to affidavits obtained by the San Antonio Express-News and KSAT.

Doctors also discovered other injuries, including a healing broken arm that required surgery, and burns to the child’s head, neck, torso and back. Robinson reportedly told police the water attack happened in late May or early June but that she was too scared to report it after Wheeler threatened her.

Authorities said Robinson never took her son to the hospital and instead used a first aid kit to treat the burns. She allegedly claimed Wheeler hurt the child because he did not get along with the boy’s biological father.

According to the affidavits, the injuries indicated the liquid had been “poured from an elevated position, allowing [the water] to travel downward in a gravity-assisted flow.” Wheeler allegedly used water he had been boiling to cook spaghetti.

On Aug. 22, Robinson called police to the couple’s apartment on Starcrest Drive to report an assault on her son by Wheeler, showing officers past injuries she said were also caused by him. Police said they had been called to the residence before.

Robinson later told investigators she found her son screaming in the bathroom with burns all over his body.

Robinson and Wheeler were arrested last week following the investigation. They remain in the Bexar County Jail on bonds of $250,000 and $300,000. Both face charges of injury to a child, elderly or disabled individual with intent to cause serious bodily injury or mental impairment.