Murtadah Mohammad, Manchester, New Hampshire father charged with murder for scalding 7 year old son, Jaevion Riley with hot water as discipline. Boy’s mother had previously complained to child protection services only for pleas to go unheard.
Failed by the system. A New Hampshire man has been charged with the murder of his 7-year-old son after the boy died from severe burns inflicted which the parent allegedly inflicted as discipline.
Murtadah Mohammad, 25, was charged with second-degree murder of his son Jaevion Riley months after the boy’s Jan. 24 death, the Manchester Police announced Monday.
Mohammad had already been locked up on charges of assault, endangering the welfare of a child and falsifying physical evidence for the same case.
Hot water as high as 153 Fahrenheit degrees
But those charges — which are currently being handled by the Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office — are expected to be dropped, with the murder charge to be prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s office, officials said.
When cops were called on Jan. 17 to a Manchester apartment, they found the boy badly burned on his face and body and unconscious and not breathing, NBC Boston previously reported.
Jaevion would remain in a coma for a week in a Massachusetts hospital before he died.
The dad — who was arrested two days later on Jan. 19 — initially claimed he didn’t see his son get hurt as the child had been in the shower at the time but investigators didn’t find signs that the shower had been run recently.
Following other inconsistencies in Mohammad’s story, the father eventually relented, conceding to cops that he disciplined the boy using hot water and physical force.
After testing the water faucet’s temperature, police determined that the boy had been burned with hot water as high as 153 Fahrenheit degrees.
‘This man was trying to kill my child.’
Told child’s mother Rainah Riley via NBC Boston, ‘This man was trying to kill my child.’
The mom said her son’s injuries looked like they were ‘from boiling water or oil,’ or the child may have been ‘set on fire.’
The mom went on to say one of the boy’s teeth had been knocked out along with the infant having a head injury.
‘It is absolutely gruesome, it is horrific, and it is sickening to look at,’ the mom told the outlet. ‘It makes me physically ill looking at my own son because of what this man did to him.’
Mohammad ’caused the death’ of Jaevion ‘recklessly under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of his life by subjecting him to abusive violence and not obtaining timely medical assistance for his injuries,’ the Manchester Police wrote on Monday.
Blood on its hands?
And then there was this backdrop story…
Mohammad had only won shared custody of Jaevion a few months prior to the death with the boy’s mother previously reporting to child services signs of abuse, including bruising.
Ultimately the agency failed to intervene.
‘The system has failed not only my child, but so many children,’ the mom said. ‘And something needs to be done, because this isn’t OK. It’s not. Like, when is enough enough?’
