LOS ANGELES --
A mom and her live-in girlfriend suspected of torturing the mom's 5-year-old son were in custody Sunday, and the child remained in critical condition at a hospital, police said.
Starkeisha Brown, 24, who was already on parole, and Krystal Matthews, 21, allegedly beat Brown's son repeatedly, burned his genitals and other parts of his body with cigarettes and left him to sit in his own urine, said Los Angeles Police Department First Assistant Chief James McDonnell.
The three were living in the area of 110th and Figueroa streets in South Los Angeles, he said.
Both have criminal records and are gang members.
Brown turned herself in at the LAPD's 77th Division jail late Friday night after the child abuse case was reported in the media, according to a police statement. She was booked on suspicion of torture and held without bail.
Matthews also was arrested Friday when she showed up for an appointment with the Department of Children Services, police said. She was booked on suspicion of willful harm or injury to a child, with bail set at $100,000.
The case first came to the attention of law enforcement Monday when the family was called in for a DCS appointment, police said.
During the appointment, Brown and Matthews brought a healthy child of a mutual friend and tried to pass off that child as Brown's son. At the same time as the DCS appointment, a stranger found the boy abandoned and notified authorities.
"Thankfully we were later able to locate our victim who had been left abandoned with an unrelated stranger," McDonnell said.
Veteran officers called it one of the worst cases of child abuse they have ever investigated.
The child appeared to have been abused for an extended period of time and has been hospitalized since Monday. He remained in critical condition Sunday, police said.
Earlier, McDonnell said he had looked at photographs of the victim, and that "in my time (with the police department) I have never seen anybody with these kind of injuries that has lived. This kid must have a tremendous will to live to be able to still hang on despite what he's been through."
The abuse the boy suffered included being denied basic necessities like food and water and being suspended with his hands above his head to a door and beaten, McDonnell said.
The child had a broken tooth with a nerve exposed and was regularly forced to place his hands on a hot stove, McDonnell said.
"Because of the burns and scar tissue, he can't fully open his hands," McDonnell said.
Lt. Vincent Neglia of the LAPD's Abused Child Unit said, "the treatment of this 5-year-old is akin to a level of torture we hope our military personnel would never encounter, yet this treatment came to this child at the hands of those in a position of trust."
Police had no information on the boy's father, and it was unknown if the child had any other relatives.
McDonnell said the victim is the only child involved in the case, but it was unknown if Brown and Matthews had access to other children.
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