A Germantown woman is expected to serve 25 years in prison for lighting her 8-year-old son on fire in 2020 and then not providing proper medical care, the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office said in a Monday statement.
On Friday, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Rachel McGuckian sentenced Kimberly Tyler, 31, to 30 years in prison, with five years suspended, and five years of supervised probation, the State’s Attorney’s Office said.
She was convicted by a jury on Dec. 7 on multiple charges, including first-degree child abuse and conspiracy to commit neglect of a minor, according to the State’s Attorney’s Office.
Tyler’s attorney, David Booth, who is a public defender, did not immediately respond to a request for comment via phone on Tuesday.
“We thank the judge for fashioning an appropriate sentence and Assistant State’s Attorneys Sheila Bagheri and John Grochowski for their work on this highly emotional and upsetting case,” said State’s Attorney John McCarthy.
On or around May 10, 2020, in her apartment in the 12000 block of Falling Water Circle in Germantown, Tyler, “in an act of punishment, burned her 8-year-old child causing him to be engulfed in flames and suffering serious and permanent physical injury,” the State’s Attorney’s Office said. Tyler was upset with the child for eating cereal and making a mess, according to the statement.
He suffered third-degree burns on both sides of his upper arms, chest and neck, and second and first-degree burns to his face and other areas of his upper body, the statement said.
Tyler admitted to her sister that “she had poured alcohol on the victim and lit him on fire based on a trend she had seen going around on YouTube,” according to the statement.
Tyler and her wife Chareese Snorgrass-Tyler, the boy’s stepmother, then threw the child into the shower, according to the statement. The couple’s five other minor children were in the bedroom at the time, according to the statement.
Tyler did not call 911 or seek medical attention for the child, instead buying bandages and burn cream. Tyler’s parents, Kimball Tyler and Lisa Jones, agreed to take the injured boy to stay with them in their home for a while, according to the State’s Attorney’s Office.
Based on Tyler’s wishes, they decided they “would attempt to care for the victim on their own rather than take him to a doctor or the hospital,” the State’s Attorney’s Office said.
Over the course of about two weeks, Tyler’s father repeatedly told his daughter that her son needed medical attention because he was heavily bandaged and in “debilitating” pain, but she would ignore him, the statement said.
On May 30, 2020, Kimball Tyler drove his grandson to Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., with wounds that were severely infected, the statement said. The hospital staff reported the case of suspected abuse to Montgomery County Police, who then began investigating the incident.
When Tyler was interviewed by police, she said that she was frying chicken around 10 a.m. that day and left it unattended when her son came into the kitchen and spilled the hot grease on himself, causing the burns, the State’s Attorney’s Office said.
The boy remained admitted in the hospital for several months, and since that day, the child “has undergone approximately 20 surgeries to excise dead tissue and graft skin and will likely remain scarred for the rest of his life,” the State’s Attorney’s Office said.
“This was among the worst we have seen when it comes to child abuse cases. The level of harm caused by someone in the ultimate position of trust, the child’s mother, is unfathomable. Our hearts are with the young victim and those now entrusted with his care,” McCarthy said.
In 2019, Child Welfare Services completed a child abuse investigation and physical abuse assessment because the boy had several welts and bruises on his thighs and scratches on him. Tyler admitted to Child Welfare Service to “physically disciplining and injuring him,” the State’s Attorney’s Office said.
Also, the boy and his siblings were “always hungry and not properly fed at home,” the statement said.
Snorgrass-Tyler pleaded guilty to neglect of a minor and is expected to serve six months in prison, and Kimball Tyler, who testified against his daughter at the trial, pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment and received a probation before judgement sentence, the State’s Attorney’s Office said.