JACKSON, MI – Daniel Ronquillo took Bridget Marks’ children three or four times a week to a Mexican restaurant, Marks testified.

He would cut up their food, and changed their diapers.

“My kids called him dad,” Marks, 22, said Monday afternoon, answering questions posed by Ronquillo's attorney, Craig Pappin.

Ronquillo, Marks' boyfriend, is accused of burning Marks’ children, Corey Austin Jr., 2, and Bella Austin, 15 months, in scalding water May 30. They were hospitalized, but have since improved.

Marks was testifying at a preliminary examination, a probable cause hearing, Monday before Jackson County District Judge Joseph Filip.

The hearing is to continue July 30. Dr. Bethany Mohr of the University of Michigan Health System’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Blackman-Leoni Township public safety Detective Sgt. Chris Boulter are yet to testify.

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Ronquillo, 24, is charged with two counts each of both first-degree child abuse and torture. Torture, the more serious offense, is punishable by up to life in prison.

Mohr determined the children were forcibly immersed in hot water, according to a Michigan Department of Human Services petition seeking to terminate Marks' parental rights. That process is pending.

The water in which the kids were bathing was 139.6 degrees, a public safety officer testified.

Bella and Corey, known as C.J., were “nice” toward him, she said.

Corey especially was fond of him, she said. “C.J. loved having Dan around. Those two were inseparable.”

She said Ronquillo, with whom she shared a home, bathed the children every night.

Marks also would bathe them and said she was worried they would fall while in the bathtub. For this reason, she said they were taught never to stand in the tub. They were conditioned to sit and wait for an adult to get them, she said, answering Pappin’s questions.

On May 30, Ronquillo called her about 6 p.m. to tell her Bella and Corey were hurt.

Ronquillo was scared, she said. “Dan doesn’t really show fear,” she said. “I knew at that point, he cared a lot because I never really heard that.”

He later told her he left them in the tub to get his cell phone, she said.

Shortly before he called to report the injuries, the two had talked on the phone at least twice, Marks said.

At one point, she said she could hear the children laughing, leaving her to believe he was talking in the doorway of the bathroom, she said.

Assistant Prosecutor Kathleen Rezmierski questioned why Ronquillo would have gone to get his phone when he had been having multiple phone conversations with Marks.

Marks said the phone was dying and the charger was in the living room.