Temecula Man Charged With Torturing Girlfriend's Son, 2

A 25-year-old Temecula man is being held on $1 million bail on suspicion of torturing and abusing his live-in girlfriend’s 2-year-old son, while the mother may also be charged for endangering and/or failing to protect her child, a prosecutor confirmed.

The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office on Thursday filed charges of torture, willfully endangering a child and inflicting corporal punishment on a child against Matthew Bayless Dement, who was arrested Wednesday in the 31700 block of Rancho California Road, court and jail records show.

The case came to the attention of investigators March 11 when Dement and his girlfriend, 21-year-old Alexa Schumacher, brought the injured boy to Rancho Springs Medical Center in Murrieta, according to an affidavit filed in court by Temecula police Detective James Dickey.

Authorities were notified that the boy allegedly “arrived at the hospital with severe burns to his lower legs and bruising on his head/face. The burns were now blistered and appeared to have resulted from a liquid burn,” Dickey wrote.

The child was taken to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton for further treatment.

It was the investigators’ opinion that the injuries to the victim did not appear consistent with statements provided by the mother and her boyfriend.

When Schumacher was interviewed by police at the hospital, she allegedly stated that the evening of March 10, Dement had given the boy a bath at their Moraga Road apartment.

She reportedly told investigators she was not in the bathroom while Dement bathed her son, but that she knew he had been burned by hot water coming from the bathtub faucet. She said though the boy’s skin was red, she did not believe he had been severely injured, Dickey wrote.

The child then fell asleep, the mother told investigators, and it was later when she checked on him that she saw his legs were severely blistered, Dickey wrote.

Dement’s alleged story was that he had put placed the naked boy into the bathtub, turned the water on and left the drain open. Dement told police he turned his back for 15 seconds to grab soap when he heard the child yell, Dickey wrote.

Dement allegedly stated he then felt the water and it was extremely hot, so he took the child out of the bath until the water reached a cooler temperature, then continued the bath. He and the mother then reportedly lathered the boy in lotion before he was placed in bed, Dickey wrote.

Dickey’s observation was that the child’s burns were allegedly isolated to below the knee on both legs.

“The bottom of the victim’s feet and thighs were not burned and one would expect them to be burned if the victim was sitting in the bathtub letting the water flow over him as stated by Dement,” Dickey wrote. “The fact that the bottom of the victim’s feet are not burned would indicate that he was standing at the times the burns occurred.”

Temecula police arrested Dement and Schumacher March 11 on suspicion of willfully harming a child and corporal punishment of a child, jail records show, but they were released when they posted $35,000 bail each.

Deputy District Attorney Julie Baldwin, who has been investigating the case and related medical records, said a filing decision against Schumacher has also since been made. She will be charged with felony endangerment of a child and/or failure to protect a child, according to Baldwin.

Schumacher was out of custody as of Thursday, jailed records showed, but was due in court May 8, at which time she would be arraigned, the prosecutor said.

The child has been placed in protective custody.

Dement was scheduled to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Baldwin said.

“Based on the totality of all the evidence...(torture) is the justified charge that he should be prosecuted on,” Baldwin said.