HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (AP) — A 10-year-old disabled girl severely burned by scalding bath water died after going more than a week without medical treatment, authorities said Tuesday. Her father and a female relative were charged in her death.
“If you’d see the photos and the condition that she was left in — just to lay in that bed with all those burns,” said Police Chief Charles Kellar. “I mean, it was horrible.”
Quiniece Lockett was blind, partially paralyzed and had cerebral palsy, Kellar said.
Police said her father, Shaun A. Lockett, 32, and another relative, Lashawn S. Brown, 27, were charged with criminal homicide, endangering a child’s welfare and two counts of conspiracy. They were being held without bail. The Dauphin County Prison listed Lockett’s first name as Shawn.
Kellar said Quiniece was burned over nearly half her body during a bath that Brown gave her April 21, but no medical help was summoned until she became unresponsive Sunday. Quiniece was declared dead at a hospital, and an autopsy performed Monday concluded she died of complications from burns.
“Apparently the water had to be extremely, extremely hot,” Kellar said. “We’re looking into, right now, whether the water heater could have heated the water that hot or whether there was hot water added.”
I hate to make this statement because I consider myself a Christ follower, but my first thought was, isn’t there is a less pleasant form of capital punishment than lethal injection.