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Left inset: Dominica Mosby (Shelby County Sheriff’s Office). Right inset: Kevin Horton (GoFundMe). Background: The home where Dominica Mosby allegedly tortured and murdered her boyfriend’s 3-year-old son Kevin Horton in Memphis, Tenn. (WHBQ).
A Tennessee woman is facing serious charges after reportedly admitting to the torture and murder of her boyfriend’s 3-year-old son. Authorities claim she confessed to extinguishing a cigarette in the boy’s ear and burning his genitals with a lighter before fatally assaulting him.
Keith Horton, the father of young Kevin Horton, shared his harrowing experience with local Fox affiliate WHBQ. He recounted arriving at the scene to find his girlfriend, Dominica Mosby, 29, of Memphis, outside the house. Mosby now faces charges of first-degree murder.
“When I went inside, my son was cold and had turned purple,” Horton recalled in the interview. “He had already passed away.”
According to police documents referenced by local CBS affiliate WREG, Mosby allegedly admitted to the violent acts against Kevin on Friday. She reportedly used a lit cigarette and lighter in the assault and stomped on the child’s stomach with her boot heel. She then struck him with both closed fists and open hands on his torso and chest, allegedly because he refused to lie down.
Police reports indicate that Mosby claimed Kevin appeared unwell and was vomiting after his aunt dropped him off. However, the aunt has firmly stated that the boy showed no signs of illness when she left him in Mosby’s care that morning.
“He was never sick,” the aunt, Jasmine Reece, told WHBQ. “That was just a story she told to get her story together, to put in people’s heads that he was sick leaving my house. The whole time, he wasn’t sick.”
A GoFundMe set up by Reece says Kevin was in “perfect health” when she dropped him off with Mosby. “She never called anyone not even his father to let anyone know that something was wrong with him until it was too late,” the description alleges.
Mosby allegedly told cops that she woke up around 3 a.m. Saturday and found that Kevin was unresponsive. She called police and the boy was pronounced dead at the scene. He suffered a lacerated liver, internal bleeding, burns on his ear and genitals, and extensive bruising, according to the medical examiner’s report.
Mosby was taken into custody and charged with murder and aggravated child abuse. She was being held without bond and scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.