HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — A Hillsborough County man is accused of lowering his girlfriend's three-year-old daughter into scalding hot water last week, leaving the victim with severe second-degree burns on the lower half of her body.
- Christopher Reddick, 19, facing charges
- Mother of child does not believe burns were intentional
- More Hillsborough County stories
Christopher Reddick, 19, was arrested on Wednesday for aggravated child abuse with great bodily harm, child neglect, and carrying a concealed firearm with a serial number removed.
Hillsborough Sheriff's Deputies said the incident happened on February 4, while his girlfriend was at work and Reddick was watching her children inside an apartment at River Tree Landing Apartments in Tampa.
Reddick told deputies he used up all of the hot water for his own shower and decided to boil a pot of water for the girl's bath. Reddick said while he was carrying that pot of hot water, he tripped on another child and spilled the water onto the victim.
Reddick's girlfriend, Shayla Smith, 23, said she believes her boyfriend, and her daughter's backing it up too.
"There's more to the story. Christopher Reddick did not burn my baby," she said. "They asked her a question. [She] said, 'No, my daddy did not burn me. My daddy tripped and hot water got on me.' That's exactly what my baby said."
Deputies said when they confronted Reddick about his account of the incident, he became argumentative and left. Hillsborough Sheriff's spokesperson Crystal Clark said Tampa General Hospital doctors also told deputes that the burn pattern on the girl did not match Reddick's story.
"This was not an accident. From the way that the burns are on her body it's pretty clear that this wasn't a splatter of water hitting the child who was sitting in the tub," Clark said. "The child's front of the body wasn't burned on the chest or anything like that. These were all lower extremities which appears to show that this child was lowered into boiling hot water."
Deputies said the girl was brought to TGH the following day. Smith said her daughter is still recovering at the hospital and has been well enough to walk around.
"Everybody's pointing fingers trying to make it seem like I'm the bad person. I'm choosing him over my child," Smith said. "That he's the bad person hurting kids."
Reddick is being held in a Hillsborough Jail on a $25,000 bond.