A Monroeville woman will face trial on charges that she abused a 7-year-old boy by beating and burning him with a cigarette lighter.
Jennifer Dale O’Keefe, 31, is being held in the Allegheny County Jail on $25,000 bail, charged with aggravated assault, endangering the welfare of children and reckless endangerment. She waived her preliminary hearing on Monday.
On Aug. 7, according to a criminal complaint, O’Keefe called for an ambulance to her apartment, saying that her 7-year-old godson had swollen lips, and that she believed he had drank his own urine and ate fish food. But when paramedics arrived, the filing said, they saw that the boy had bruising consistent with being grabbed forcefully on his arms, bruises on his legs and forehead, as well as cigarette burns on his chest and abdomen. While his lips were swollen, he did not have any respiratory distress, the complaint said.
While O’Keefe went with the medics to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, she left shortly after they arrived, without providing information about the child’s history, police said. Police spent four days tracking her down.
Dr. Jennifer Wolford, who examined the boy, said he had too many bruises to count, and that he had “extraordinary bruising all over his abdomen, across his entire forehead, scalp, both arms, buttocks, thighs, back, and there were internal injuries as well.”
She also said he had patterned burn marks on his buttocks and thighs, believed to have been made with a lighter, the complaint said.
The boy had makeup on his face over the bruises “as if someone was trying to cover up the bruising on his face.”
The child could have died without medical intervention, police said in the complaint.
Detectives said that they spoke with the boy’s mother three days after he was hospitalized in intensive care. She told them O’Keefe had been her babysitter since April when schools were closed because of the pandemic. The woman explained that O’Keefe kept her son from Sunday night until she finished working on Fridays.
The boy’s mother said she communicated with O’Keefe on her cell phone and through Facebook Messenger. She said O’Keefe changed her account on Aug. 7.
On Aug. 11, O’Keefe went to the Monroeville Police station to be interviewed.
There, the complaint said, she admitted that she “hit, punched, shoved, hit the victim with a belt and buckle, spatula, shoe and kicked the victim multiple times over a two-day period.”
She also admitted to throwing burning incense sticks at the victim and using a lighter to burn him, police said.
