By ANDREA POTEET
Sunday Times Newspapers
WYANDOTTE – Two parents charged with leaving their children in a scalding bathtub will head to trial after waiving their rights to a preliminary examination of the evidence against them Thursday in 27th District Court.
Erica Anne Bohn, 24, and her boyfriend, Brandon Edward Soules, 28, are to be arraigned in Wayne County District Court at 9 a.m. Thursday. They were arraigned in 27th District Court Dec. 5 and charged with two counts each of child abuse, a 10-year felony.
Bohn and Soules were arrested Nov. 7 after allegedly leaving their 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son in a scalding bathtub in their house in the 300 block of Kings Highway while under the influence of prescription drugs.
The children, who suffered severe burns to their feet, are in the custody of their grandparents. They were treated at Children’s Hospital of Michigan and released.
The children’s maternal grandfather, with whom the couple live, told police he heard screaming and crying for about five minutes about 4 p.m. that day and yelled for his daughter and her boyfriend to quiet the children down. When no one answered, he ran upstairs and saw steam coming out of the bathroom.
“The children were huddled together in the back corner of the tub unable to get out on their own due to the sliding doors blocking them,” the report said.
He said Soules was sitting on the toilet unresponsive and “not doing anything to help the kids.” The grandfather grabbed the children from the tub.
The grandfather told police the couple had been “on a three-day bender.” Police found 50 Vicodin and 51 Xanax pills both prescribed to the 28-year-old man in his pockets and in prescription bottles listed as containing 90 and 60 pills, respectively, and filled that day.
The grandmother, who told police she came home after the incident, told police the two are “always high.”
Both parents had slurred speech and were unsteady on their feet while officers interviewed them. Bohn said she did not check on the children because she was getting clothes for them and thought they may have bumped their heads.