For two years, authorities said, a mother subjected her son to what veteran detectives described as shocking, ritualistic abuse.
The 5-year-old was hung by his hands and wrists from a door jamb and beaten with some sort of leash or chain, police said. He was routinely denied food and water, burned with cigarettes on his body and genitals, and left to sit in his own urine and feces.
In the past few weeks, his hands were held to a hot stove, according to Capt. Fabian Lizarraga, causing injuries that may leave them permanently disfigured.
Starkeisha Brown, the boy's 24-year-old mother, allegedly committed the acts for about two years without detection -- until a bizarre series of events last week.
"It causes you to question the humanity of some people," Assistant Police Chief Earl Paysinger said about the abuse. "Whether they have a heart or a soul."
It started with an anonymous tip to the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services saying there was a problem at the South Los Angeles apartment near 110th and Figueroa streets.
On Monday, June 9, Brown and her live-in girlfriend, Krystal Matthews, 19, were ordered to a children services office along with the boy to discuss the allegation of abuse.
Instead, the pair left the abused boy with a complete stranger and attended the meeting with a healthy-looking 4-year-old they said was Brown's son, along with a girl of about 6, authorities said. Police said they are trying to determine those children's identities.
They told the stranger, " 'Watch him for us.' They said 'We'll be right back,' " Lizarraga said.
While the women were being interviewed, the stranger who had been asked to watch the boy started asking people in the neighborhood what he should do with the 5-year-old, who looked sickly and injured. Eventually someone called authorities.
Officials got word of the boy's condition as they were interviewing Brown and Matthews and began asking more pointed questions and challenging the pair's story, Lizarraga said.
Halfway through the interview the two women sprinted from the office, abandoning the 4-year-old and his sister at the office, police said.
"They realize that no one is buying their ruse," said Lt. Vincent Neglia of the LAPD's Abused Child Unit, and "they bug out."
Lizarraga said it was fortunate that the stranger sought help. He "had the sense that something was not right, that the situation he had been placed in was not right," the captain said.
