Orlando: Two women in Florida, the United States, have been arrested for beating a three-year-old child to death with a metal rod.
According to a report in Daily Mail, 28-year-old Lakesha Lewis and her mother, 58-year-old Callene Barton, murdered Lewis’ girlfriend’s baby after they caught him drinking milk and eating yoghurt on Friday noon.
The mother of the child, 23-year-old Brandi Mokarzel was also arrested on a single count of child neglect, but was later released on a bond of $2,500.
Police records said that Mokarzel had woken up to see that Lewis and Barton were violently beating her son Xavier Mokarzel-Satchel with a rod used to hold curtains. He was hardly breathing when the police found him in the apartment in Pine Hills, Florida.
The report said that she had snatched her son away from the other two women in order to protect him and had tried to call the police but Barton followed her and slapped the phone out of her hand. She proceeded to threaten Mokarzel, grabbed the baby and threw him down the hallway. Barton and Lewis noticed that he was having a fit and threw water on his face to stop it.
In the meantime, Mokarzel fled to the neighbour’s house to call 911 and when she returned she saw her child lying on his back with food coming out of his nose. He was taken to the hospital after the three women were arrested but he died four hours later. Doctors said that he had bruises on his body from previous beatings.
Lewis was charged with felony, aggravated child abuse and first degree murder. Her four-year-old son was taken in to the care of authorities. In addition to the same charges, Barton was also charged with obstructing communication with a law enforcement agency because she had knocked the phone out of Mokarzel’s hand.
