A Westminster man has been sent to state prison for 25 years and eight months for sticking an 11-month-old girl in a bathtub filled with water that was over 120 degrees Fahrenheit, severely burning and disfiguring the baby.
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Around 5:40 p.m. on Jan. 26, 2013, Alfred Alexander Hollimon filled a bathtub with water by turning the faucet on a high heat setting. He woke the baby girl, who was related to him, from her nap, removed her clothing and dipped her lower half in the scalding hot water.
The 24-year-old Westminster resident then took the tot out of the tub and began peeling off pieces of her blistered skin from the tip of her toes to the bottom of her knee caps, tossing the skin into a kitchen trash can.
The girl's mother heard the commotion from a nearby room and called 9-1-1. The baby was taken to UCI Medical Center's Regional Burn Center, where she was treated for third-degree burns to her legs, calves, feet and buttocks, including blistering on both of her legs and vaginal area.
X-rays would reveal the girl also suffered fractures in her skull, spine, ribs and an arm. Her scarring will last a lifetime as she'll have to undergo regular surgeries and skin graft operations until her body stops growing, according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's office.
A Westminster Police investigation resulted in Hollimon's arrest, and a jury on March 21 found him guilty of two felony counts of child abuse, one felony count of mayhem and a sentencing enhancement for causing great bodily injury to a child under 5, with a prior strike conviction in 2008 for attempted robbery in Nevada.
The parents in the process of adopting the girl submitted a victim impact statement to the court at Friday's sentencing that describes how she never can feel comfortable wearing clothing like normal children or go to the beach without feeling self-conscious.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.