Dad, 23: Innocent in death of son, 1

Bath burns fatal; fractures turn up

A Little Rock man pleaded innocent to first-degree murder nearly five months after his infant son died from severe burns from a bath drawn by his father.

Joseph Johnson, 23, of 5201 Geyer Springs Road, appeared in Little Rock District Court early Friday morning and entered his preliminary plea in the death of his son, Joseph Johnson Jr., before Judge Alice Lightle set his bail at $1 million.

Johnson surrendered to detectives late Thursday night after learning a murder warrant had been issued for him Tuesday.

On June 3, police went to Johnson’s home at 7 Chimney Rock Place and found the 14-month-old with skin slipping off his legs. According to detectives, the child suffered second- and third-degree burns to more than 50 percent of his body,

including his legs, buttocks, genitals, back and right arm. His left arm was not burned.

After the child was rushed to Arkansas Children’s Hospital for treatment, police interviewed Johnson, who was home alone with his son that night.

Johnson said it was his first time to give his son a bath.

Johnson later told detectives that the child had health complications since birth, and he only had been home with Johnson and his mother, Krystel Owens, for about a month.

The child had a feeding tube and medical needs that required treatment every four hours, Johnson told detectives, and because the boy had a doctor’s appointment the next day, Johnson decided to run a bath.

He told police he filled an inflatable plastic tub with a mix of warm and cold water and that when he checked the water with his hand, it “felt fine to him.”

He said he set the infant in the water and turned back around when the child started screaming. He pulled the boy out of the water and noticed that “the skin was com- ing off his body.”

Owens was at the grocery store when she got a call from Johnson, who was “very upset and crying,” telling her that he had burned their child.

She came home, then called 911. When asked why he didn’t call for help, Johnson told detectives he was too distraught.

Initially, officers thought the wounds were not life-threatening and that the “incident appeared to be an accident,” according to reports.

The infant remained in the hospital’s intensive-care unit where his condition “steadily worsened.” The child’s wounds became infected, and “he began having trouble breathing.” On June 19, the infant died. Because of the child’s fragile condition, medical staff was unable to fully evaluate the extent of his injuries until the child died. In an X-ray done after the baby’s death, doctors found a fracture on the child’s forearm and one on his left foot and estimated the fractures were approximately two to six weeks old.

After an autopsy by the medical examiner’s office, the cause of death was determined to be thermal burns with complications, and on July 25, police ruled it a homicide. Police reinterviewed Johnson, who told detectives the same story and speculated that the landlord may have tinkered with the hot-water heater “causing the water to get too hot,” according to the affidavit.

Investigators checked the water that came from the bathtub faucet and measured it at 135 degrees. The landlord said he hadn’t touched the hot-water heater.

When asked why a warrant wasn’t issued until more than three months passed after the infant’s death was ruled a homicide, Little Rock Police Department spokesman Lt. Sidney Allen said that detectives had to wait on the autopsy findings before submitting their own investigation to the court.

He was unable to offer any other explanation of what in the investigation prompted charges to be filed months later.

Police officials never announced the child’s death nor the medical examiner’s ruling that it was a homicide.

The infant was the city’s 22nd homicide and increases the total homicide count this year in Little Rock to 31.

Johnson Jr.’s death marks the youngest homicide victim this year.

On July 24, 2012, police found the body of Alexis Esaw Khabeer, 25, in an abandoned southwest Little Rock home only to realize the murdered woman was 14 weeks pregnant.

Days later, police arrested Mark Bonner and charged him with two counts of capital murder in the deaths of Khabeer and her unborn child.

In November 2012, Bonner pleaded innocent to two counts of first-degree murder by reason of mental defect.

Like Johnson, Bonner, 30, remained at the Pulaski County jail in lieu of a $1 million bond.