Trial begins for father who scalded 18-month-old son during weekend visitation (North Aurora, Illinois)

Dad JASON BARNES is going to trial on aggravated battery charges. He is accused of deliberately burning his 18-month-old son during weekend visitation. Notice that this guy had visitation even though he was never married to the boy's mother.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chibrknews-trial-begins-for-father-of-scalded-child-who-lost-his-toes-20110621,0,5290246.story

Trial begins for father of scalded child who lost his toes
By Clifford Ward

Special to the Tribune

7:32 p.m. CDT, June 21, 2011

A toddler so badly scalded that he lost all his toes could not have been burned in a bathroom sink in the way his father described it, a doctor testified today, the first day of the father’s trial.

North Aurora resident Jason Barnes, 37, is being tried in Kane County, accused of heinous battery to a child, aggravated battery and aggravated domestic battery for the August 2009 scalding of his 18-month-old son.

The child suffered extensive burns to his lower extremities in Barnes’ residence, and authorities allege the scalding was intentional. In Tuesday’s opening statement, Barnes attorney Sandra Byrd said the child climbed into a bathroom sink filled with hot water while Barnes was doing a household chore.

But Dr. David M. Sanchez, an Aurora emergency room physician who treated the child, disputed Barnes’ version, saying the small sink wouldn’t accommodate the child.

“With the extent of the burns…it doesn’t seem likely that could occur at all,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez described how he and another doctor performed emergency incisions on the child’s legs that re-established blood flow. From Provena Mercy Hospital, the child was airlifted to the Loyola University Hospital burn center in Maywood.

The child’s mother, Elaine Brocker, was the trial’s first witness. She said she and Barnes had two children from a four-year relationship that ended in 2008, and that she had dropped the boy and his 3-year-old sister at their father’s for weekend visitation the day before.
She said Barnes called her the next morning at her work and said the boy had been burned. When asked if she heard anything else on the phone call, Brocker said, “My son, screaming bloody murder.”

Although the child, now 3, lost his toes, Brocker later testified that he is “very mobile.”

The bench trial before Judge Timothy Sheldon is expected to run through the end of the week.