Affidavit: Tahlequah Mom Burns Baby's Testicles With Hair Straightener

Thursday, May 3rd 2012, 4:58 pm

By: News On 6

A Tahlequah mother is in jail after authorities say she admitted to burning her 15-month-old baby's genitals with a hair-straightening iron.

Jodi Rock, 19, is being held on a $200,000 bond at the Cherokee County Detention Center on accusations of felony injury to a child.

According to an affidavit for arrest, which was obtained Thursday by News On 6, authorities were called to the Tahlequah City Hospital on April 26 for a possible child abuse case. Investigators found Rock's baby had several bone fractures to both shoulders and burns to the groin and genital area, with some of the fractures being 12 weeks old, the affidavit says.

A deputy reported seeing three burns on the baby's genital area, including across his testicles, documents say.

Read Arrest Affidavit [Warning: Graphic]



When questioned, authorities said, Rock gave several different stories as to why the child was injured, and on different occasions tried to implicate her boyfriend and her aunt and uncle.

An investigator described seeing the baby in the hospital and reported, "he was glassy eyed and appeared to be withdrawn."

He added that when he saw the child's shoulder, "It was slack and had an obvious deformity that was impossible to not notice. The child visually appeared to be in agony."

According to the affidavit, the ER doctor notified investigators the baby's left shoulder injury had happened within the last 12 hours, but the right shoulder injury was about 12 weeks old. The baby also had forearm and wrist fractures.

After being questioned again by authorities on April 27, Rock confessed to "burning [the baby] with a flat iron hair straightener. She said she was straightening her hair and that she touched her hand to the iron. She then said she took and closed the iron [on the baby's] private parts," the affidavit says.

Authorities said Rock also said she or her boyfriend could have hurt the child's arms because they both play rough with him by "pulling him up by the arms and throwing him up in the air and on the bed and such."

The baby was put in DHS custody while at the hospital.

The affidavit also says Rock's baby was previously treated for Scabies at the hospital, and probably still is infected.