- November 5, 2024
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Deputies have made a second arrest in the case of a Palm Coast toddler whose father allegedly bathed him in boiling water and beat him wth a switch.
On March 9, deputies arrested Luciana Celestin, 24, who had responsibility for the child's welfare, according to her arrest warrant. Documents from the Sheriff's Office do not say whether she is the boy's mother or another adult household member. She is charged with neglect of a child causing great bodily harm, a felony.
"This person knew that something was going on with regards to this child and did nothing to stop it or render aid,” Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said in a Sheriff's Office news release. “A helpless child will spend the rest of his life with the scars from this abuse.”
The boy's father, 26-year-old Deviaun Toler, had been arrested Feb. 15. He'd brought the boy to Florida Hospital Flagler Feb. 14 with "severe injuries all over his body, including bruising to his chest, back and a burn to his arm," according to a Flagler County Sheriff's Office case report. "(The boy) also had a fractured skull and brain swelling."
The child was taken from Florida Hospital Flagler to Wolfson Children's Hospital because his injuries were life-threatening.
Hopsital staff alerted the Department of Children and Families, which alerted the Flagler County Sheriff's Office, which arrested Toler the morning of Feb. 15.
It was three to four weeks before that Toler bathed the boy in boiling water and with a washcloth soaked in boiling water, leaving a large burn on the child's right shoulder and arm, according to the arrest report. But Toler, at the time, did not get the boy any medical treatment.
Toler had also beaten the boy at least three times with a belt and on other occasions with a "switch" from a tree branch "as a means of discipline, which caused numerous scarred and open lacerations on the buttocks of the child that caused permanent disfigurement," according to the arrest report.
“This is a traumatic situation and, if this child survives, he will spend the rest of his life with scars from this abuse, both physical and emotional,” Sheriff Rick Staly said in a news release. “Some people should not be allowed to be a parent. I hope he spends the rest of his life in prison.”
Toler, who lives on Westfield Lane, is charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse and is being held at the Flagler County jail with no bond.
