His wife is blamed for punishing the 6-year-old by putting him in a scalding shower.
FULTON – Otis McKinney was working so hard at two jobs to support his family that he was rarely involved in disciplining his 7-year-old stepson and 3-year-old daughter, his defense attorney said.
And, he said, McKinney knew nothing about the severity of the scalding burns he’s accused of inflicting on the boy as punishment for misbehavior at school.
McKinney, a Columbia man on trial in Callaway County for child abuse and endangerment, is accused of placing his son, then 6, in a shower so hot that it caused third-degree burns.
However, defense attorney Richard French said during his opening statement at the jury trial that McKinney was a “caring, gentle man.” It was his wife, Erma McKinney, who disciplined the children and lied to her husband about the source of her son’s injuries, French said.
The case is hardly a repeat of Erma McKinney’s bench trial, in which she was convicted last week in Boone County of four felony abuse charges. Erma McKinney’s defense blamed the abuse on her husband, saying she had only followed his lead in abusing the boy. Otis McKinney, however, is turning the tables, saying his wife was the abusive parent.
The defense said McKinney did not even see the extent of the infected burns on his stepson’s back and right arm until he and Erma took the child to see a doctor at Rusk Rehabilitation Center on June 14, 2005, nearly a month after the couple allegedly forced their son to stand under the water in a hot shower on May 19, 2005.
“Otis was horrified by what he saw,” French said. “He did not know the source of those injuries.”
The defense said the severity of the burns on the boy’s back is further indication that McKinney was unaware of how his wife was disciplining her son.
Prosecuting Attorney Richard Hicks said Dr. James Kaatz, a burn expert at University Hospital who will testify for the state today, will say the burns were so severe, they looked like chemical burns instead of thermal burns caused by hot water.
Dr. Jim Deline and Paul Linneman, a registered nurse, testified for the state Wednesday about the severity of the boy’s injuries, as they had during Erma McKinney’s trial.
Deline, the emergency room doctor working at University Hospital when the McKinneys brought the boy in, said there was no question the boy needed medical treatment and someone should have taken him to the hospital earlier.
“In my own opinion, almost anyone could see that,” he said.
After the boy received initial treatment, he was transferred to the hospital’s burn unit, where he underwent a series of skin graft surgeries. Those were documented through photos by Linneman, who works with burn patients. Linneman said grafts might not have been needed if the burns had received immediate treatment.
Hospital staff called the Columbia Police Department on June 17, 2005, to investigate the strange nature of the boy’s burns. The McKinneys were taken to the Police Department for questioning, where the couple were interviewed at the same time in separate rooms.
Columbia police Detective Bryan Liebhart, a state witness who testified on Wednesday, said McKinney did confess to helping his wife punish the boy with a hot shower, and he knew his Miranda rights when he made the statement.
The defense, however, said Otis never confessed to committing the crime himself.
“Otis will say that he never confessed or signed a statement,” French said. “There is no videotaped confession.”
Liebhart said McKinney confessed that he knew hot showers served as punishment for his stepson, and he helped his wife inflict the treatment several times and did the punishment three times by himself.
The trial, which was moved to Callaway County on Tuesday because the defense said that media coverage tainted the Boone County jury pool, continues today with testimony from state and defense witnesses, including a videotaped testimony from the abused boy.