The Department of Children and Families (DCF) said they were notified by daycare workers after they noticed a large mark on the boy.
The child’s mother told the daycare that the boy got the mark from being “pulled across the top of a trampoline” and asked them not to call the DCF, reported Click Orlando. She added that when the child was not in daycare, he was looked after by 47-year-old Terry May.
The child protective investigator then took the boy to the hospital, as the mother could not get off work. When asked how he got the mark on his back, the child said May poured boiling water on his back after he urinated on the floor at his house, reports the Daytona Beach-News Journal.
A deputy from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office attended the AdventHealth DeLand hospital and spoke with the investigator. When the deputy asked the boy how he hurt his back, the boy replied: “Terry burned me.”
The child reportedly appeared too scared to say more about the incident when asked by the authorities.
Volusia County sheriff’s spokesman Andrew Gant said the case is still being investigated and May has not been arrested or charged.
This is not the first time the 47-year-old has been accused of child abuse. In January 2018, he was sought by police after a 3-year-old girl alleged he beat her and put her in an oven.
According to a statement at the time, deputies and the DCF met with the girl at her home, where she claimed May frequently hit her with a belt.
Police noticed the girl had several noticeable injuries, including an extensive abrasion on her ear consistent with a burn injury, bruising and swelling on her head, a 6-inch scar on her back, and lacerations on her feet, hands and leg.
The child later claimed to the DCF that she burned her ear after May had put her in the oven. May denied the allegations against him and the case was later dropped.
“Last year we arrested Terry May on a charge of abusing a 3-year-old girl who said he beat her with a belt and burned her in an oven. Unfortunately, it was her word against Terry’s, and prosecutors weren’t able to make the case,” Volusia County sheriff Mike Chitwood tweeted.
“The word ‘bully’ gets thrown around a lot, but to me there is no bigger bully than the kind of coward who picks on 3-year-olds.”