An Oklahoma couple was arrested earlier this week on abuse charges after the man’s battered and bruised 9-year-old son was found hiding in a washing machine.
Taylor Ainsworth, 23, and Cody Wayne Hudson, 28, of Midwest City, are each charged with one count of child abuse by injury, Oklahoma County Jail records show. They are each being held in lieu of $10,000 bond.
KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City reported that Midwest City police officers went to the couple's home Monday after Ainsworth's sister called the department and said her sister -- who is six months pregnant -- had admitted to their mother that she'd beaten her boyfriend's son. Court documents obtained by the news station said the sister told investigators she'd visited the house Sunday and that the boy was "covered in bruises."
When officers went to the house for a welfare check, Hudson and Ainsworth told them the boy was not there and that he’d been sleeping over at Ainsworth’s mother’s house since the weekend.
The officers searched the home and found no sign of the boy, KFOR reported.
"We're getting the runaround," Midwest City assistant police Chief Sid Porter told the news station. "Nobody wants to tell us the truth."
Porter said the officers left, but returned to the house just three minutes later after receiving information that the boy should be home.
A second search of the house turned up the boy, "in the washing machine, covered by a blanket," the court documents said. Investigators said the boy was forced to hide by his father and Ainsworth when the police showed up.
"The child was covered in bruises from the top of his head to the bottom of his legs," an officer wrote in a probable cause affidavit, KFOR reported. "He had multiple large bruises on his face and a black eye."
When questioned, Hudson claimed responsibility for the boy’s injuries, the news station reported. Ainsworth said she had been on bed rest, by orders of her obstetrician, and thought the boy was with her mother.
The boy told a different story, however. According to the court documents, the boy told investigators that both his father and Ainsworth beat him with a belt, but that most of his injuries were inflicted by Ainsworth.
He said Ainsworth bit him multiple times, choked him and stomped on his left leg, telling him, “Shut up, or I’ll beat you more,” the court documents obtained by the news station said. The boy said Ainsworth would choke him with his own shirt and hit him with a spatula while yelling that no one liked him.
He was also forced to sleep on the floor near the front door or on the bathroom floor, KFOR reported.
There were three other children in the home, but it was not immediately clear if they were harmed, as well. All four children have been placed in other homes by the Department of Human Services, the news station said.
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