The four-year-old girl awoke repeatedly in anguish, wailing, due to the excruciating pain of bubbling burns that snaked like hair from her scalp to her back, which deprived her of sleep.
“I could do nothing but sit in my bed and cry because I couldn’t fathom the agony this child was enduring,” the girl’s great-grandmother said in a victim’s impact statement delivered in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court on Tuesday.
She stated that the child remains conscious two years later, terrified that the man who burned her will return.
Tyrone Stewart was found convicted by a jury in April of second-degree cruelty to juveniles. Prosecutors had charged him with repeatedly pouring scalding water over the girl’s head, resulting in third-degree burns that left 15% of her body scarred. On December 16, 2021, two months later, he was apprehended.
In light of the child’s family’s entreaties for the most severe sanction conceivable, Judge Darryl Derbigny imposed the maximum sentence of forty years in prison on Stewart on Tuesday.
Sir, you have a great deal for which to make amends, Derbigny stated.
According to Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams, charges are expected to be filed in Stewart’s case in accordance with the state’s habitual offender statute. This statute is utilized by the prosecution to target individuals who have prior felony convictions. By invoking the statute, Derbigny would be granted the opportunity to increase Stewart’s sentence to life in prison.
Stewart was opposed by members of his own family at his trial, which was presided over by assistant district attorneys Lauren Boudreaux and Amanda Liotto and Williams.
At his trial, the girl’s mother, who is accused with second-degree cruelty to juveniles on the grounds that she allegedly denied the girl hospital care for two days following the burning, testified in Stewart’s favor. Prosecutors indicted her on perjury and obstruction of justice subsequent to her assertion that a pot of boiling water upended by accident caused the girl’s injury.
Additionally, she is accused of bruising one of her three children on a separate occasion. She has entered a not-guilty plea in each of the three instances. The child’s identity is being safeguarded by withholding her name and the names of other family members.
Family members lodged numerous complaints with the state’s dysfunctional Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) in the months preceding Stewart’s arrest, exerting pressure on caseworkers to conduct an investigation into the residence. “Everyone who attempted to rescue her from the predicament was disregarded,” the great-grandmother remarked.
According to the records, caseworkers examined a minimum of four allegations of abuse pertaining to the child. But only the report submitted subsequent to her burn injury was deemed legitimate. After the child was removed from the residence, her great-grandmother was granted custody of her. The two youngest siblings, however, remained with their mother.
Additionally, a minimum of three reports were submitted in relation to cases that involved Stewart. A number of distinct allegations of sexual fondling and bruising were refuted by the agency. A third report has been designated as non-public.
According to records, eight additional complaints were filed against the mother of the girl over the past four years.
Following the mother’s arrest by New Orleans police on September 22, 2022, on suspicion of belt-beating her 3-year-old daughter, DCFS removed the mother’s other two children from her custody.
The great-grandmother lamented the charred girl’s former self: a vivacious infant who delighted in singing and dancing, who is now doomed to a life of hairlessness and regular surgical procedures to remove the keloids—thick, raised scars—that obstruct her neck mobility.
“This is not what she deserves,” declared the great-grandmother.
“However,” she proceeded, “I know that the individual who endured that will develop into a strong individual.” So long as I continue to exist, she will remain in good health. Furthermore, for as long as my family continues to exist, she will retain that village.”
Report any suspicions of abuse to DCFS and local law enforcement. Children who sustain injuries may be transported to the Children’s Hospital of New Orleans or the Audrey Hepburn CARE Center. Additionally, both institutions offer support for caregivers who are experiencing difficulties.
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