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Last updated on Monday, November 9, 2015
(FORT WAYNE) - Allen County prosecutors have charged a local man with battery and neglect after his girlfriend’s sons were found allegedly beaten and their hair pulled out, according to court documents.
WANE TV reports, 27-year-old Michael A. Holloway of Fort Wayne was charged in Allen Superior Court with two counts of battery and two of neglect of a dependent, all level 3 felonies, accused of beating the two toddler sons of his live-in girlfriend.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the boy's father called police January 31 after finding bruising all over his 3-year-old son's body and hair missing during a visitation. After asking his son about the wounds, the man told police his son said that Holloway had picked him by his hair, the affidavit said.
Police found bruises on the boy's shoulders, face, face and head, as well as tufts of hair missing from his scalp, the affidavit said. The boy also told police his head hurt, the affidavit said.
The Department of Child Services was then called in, and the boy was turned over to his father, the affidavit said.
That same day, a child services case worker investigated the boy's mother at her home - a motel room - and found severe injuries to her 2-year-old son there. Police were called and the boy was taken to Parkview Regional Medical Center for treatment, the affidavit said.
Holloway, the live-in boyfriend of the boys' mother, told police that the injuries to the 3-year-old were caused by a makeshift tent that had collapsed, the affidavit said. He said he did not notice the bruising and said he did not know how the boy lost his hair, though he added he will spank the boys once or twice on the diaper to discipline them, the affidavit said.
Holloway said the 2-year-old had fallen down the steps of the motel and he was not able to grab him, the affidavit said. Holloway said the boy acted normal after the fall but were not visible until the following day, the affidavit said. Police noted in the affidavit that the boy's mother noticed the injuries later but did not take him for medical treatment.
The mother told investigators that the boys are "rough with each other," and called one of them "an active child," according to the affidavit.
One of the boy's told police that Holloway "pulled my hair out" when he was "in timeout" and said he "whooped" him with a belt.
Doctors told police that "neither of the children's injuries are adequately explained by the history reportedly offered by the mother, and the characteristic of nonaccidental/inflicted trauma," according to the affidavit.
Holloway has not been arrested.
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