Babysitting Nightmare: Barber Charged After Allegedly Torturing and Murdering 6-Year-Old for Wetting Himself

A 41-year-old California man has been charged with multiple crimes in connection with the beating death of a 6-year-old boy.

Ernest Lamar Love, 41,of Placentia, has been charged with murder, torture and child abuse causing death, the Orange County, California District Attorney’s Office said in a news release posted on its website.

Chance Crawford, 6, died Tuesday due to injuries suffered on August 29 after his mother dropped the boy at Love’s barbershop at about 6:30 p.m. so that he could babysit while she went to work at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

Seven hours later, the boy came into a hospital “unconscious and struggling to breathe,” the release said.

The release said that earlier that evening, “video surveillance shows Love walking into his barber shop with a large piece of raw lumber with a reluctant Chance following behind him.”

The release indicated that the boy had wet his pants at a park where Love took him, triggering the punishment.

The release said Love has been accused of “ beating the first grader with the piece of lumber, then pouring hydrogen peroxide on the open wounds before forcing the boy to doing push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks.”

At the hospital, the release said, doctors found “much of Chance’s flesh was missing from his buttocks, leaving raw, gaping wounds, along with subdural hematoma, extreme brain swelling, and other injuries consistent with violent shaking. The little boy also had healing fracture on his shoulder blade.”

“While his new classmates were celebrating the end of the first week of first grade, Chance’s seat in his classroom was empty as he fought for his life in a hospital bed,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said.

“Words do not exist to describe the absolute terror this little boy was forced to endure – all at the hands of someone who was supposed to be protecting him, not torturing him to death.”

EXCLUSIVE: A grieving mother is speaking out after the man she trusted was charged with murder and torture in the death of her 6-year-old son. 💔

“He died a brutal death. It was brutal. He did not deserve to go out that way.” https://t.co/PJU6G0PSnn pic.twitter.com/aMFqxGSk9I

— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) September 6, 2024

Love, who pleaded not guilty is being held without bail. according to WLS-TV.

WLS reported that the child was in a coma from Friday until his death on Tuesday.

“This is killing us slowly because no child deserves to get treated like this,” Crawford’s cousin Aisha Herrell said. She said the hospital was told the boy hurt himself in a fall.

“The more and more that I explain what happened, the more angry I feel,” Crawford’s father Vance Crawford said.

“Just like why? Why would this happen to him? He didn’t get to live the rest of life,” Crawford said. “He’s 6 years old. I wanted to see my son graduate.”

Vance Crawford called Love a “a monster,” according to KTLA-TV.

“He deserves what’s coming. I’m going to let God handle him,” Crawford said.

If convicted of all charges, Love faces a sentence of 32 years to life plus five years.

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