By ANDREA POTEET
Sunday Times Newspapers
WYANDOTTE – The father of two children burned after they were left standing in hot bath water was sentenced to up to a year in jail Jan. 30.
Brandon Soules, 29, was sentenced in Wayne County Circuit Court after pleading guilty to two counts of felony second-degree child abuse.
His girlfriend and the children’s mother, 24-year-old Erica Bohn, also faces two counts of felony second-degree child abuse and remains at the Wayne County Jail. After waiving a jury trial in January, she will face a bench trial March 1 in Wayne County Circuit Court.
Bohn and Soules were arrested after a Nov. 7 incident, in which their 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son were left in scalding water in a bathtub in their house in the 300 block of Kings Highway while the parents were allegedly 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 lived, 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.