An 11-month-old baby is in critical condition after suffering second degree burns over 30% of her body, and her mother's boyfriend was arrested. The Queens DA's office says that Anthony Parra, 20, was watching the baby and her two-year-old sister while their mother was at work. When Raylin Castillo refused her bottle, Parra allegedly punished her by placing her under a shower and turning up the water's heat twice and pouring even hotter water from the kitchen sink over the baby.
Parra initially brought the baby to the New York Hospital Medical Center in Queens early Wednesday morning, claiming she had a rash. But hospital staff found her condition to be more consistent with burns—"second-degree burns on 30 percent of her body, including her back, the front of her torso, her scalp and her forehead." The Queens DA's press release has more of the horrible details, such as how Parra saw the "baby’s skin getting red and began scrubbing her with a sponge, at which point the skin began to peel off" and how her "poured the very hot water" from the kitchen sink "over the baby while the shower was going and the baby was on all fours."
Parra is charged with first- and second-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child. NY1 reports that his lawyer says that Parra was pressured into making the statement, adding that his client put the baby in the shower because he had seen his girlfriend calm the baby that way before.
Little Raylin is at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center now; her father, Raymundo Castillo Jr., said, "All I ask is for the prayers from everyone. If there's a God, then so be it. Then help, because I need it, my family needs it, my daughter is the one who needs it the most."
