New Jersey mother admited pouring boiling water on 3-year-old boy in ‘house of horrors’ – thebl.com

A New Jersey woman admitted to scalding a 3-year-old child in her care at a home called a ‘house of horrors’ by prosecutors, ABC7 reported.

Patricia Buchan, 29, of Newark, admitted that she ordered the child to undress, placed him in a bath and poured a pot of boiling water on the boy’s lower body in December 2018, resulting in his second-degree burns, according to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office announced Friday, Oct. 18. She told the court that the child urinated on the floor in her son’s room, according to NJ Advance Media.

Buchan was one of six adult residents of the apartment, including the child’s mother, who took turns abusing the child.

“This child lived his first three years in a house of horrors,” Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Morris said Friday. “Today’s plea resolves the case without the ordeal of the children having to testify.”

Officials were alerted to the abuse by Newark public preschool officials. Prosecutors said the abuse included a ‘systematic and coordinated beating’ of the boy with a belt and fists and the use of scalding water to punish him.  

Patricia Buchan, (bottom R), lived with five other adults in the property. Natacha Smith, 44, (Bottom L) is the boy’s mother who also lived at the ‘squalid’ apartment. TOP L-R: Patricia Gamarra, 62; Homer Searcy, 39; and Mary Buchan, 56.  Bottom L-R: Natacha Smith, 44: Buchan’s sister, Bridget, 24: and Patricia Buchan, 29. (Essex County Prosecutor’s Office)

Buchan was charged for aggravated assault and child endangerment and faces up to five years in a New Jersey prison under the terms of the plea agreement. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 6.

Patricia Gamarra, 63, Mary Buchan, 56, Bridget Buchan, 24, Homer Searcy, 40, and Natacha Smith, 44—the boy’s mother, are also charged for aggravated assault and child endangerment. 

According to Essex County Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman Katherine Carter, they have all been indicted but their cases were still pending on Friday.

The boy was treated for his injuries before being taken into protective custody. 

Five other children who lived in the apartment, including four of Buchan’s biological children, were removed to protective custody.