Crime & Safety

'Horrors:' NJ Mom Scalded Boy With Water For Urinating On Floor

​A New Jersey woman scalded a 3-year-old boy with water for urinating on the floor, prosecutors said this weekend.

Patricia Buchan
Patricia Buchan (ECPO photo)

A New Jersey mother scalded a 3-year-old boy with water for urinating on the floor, prosecutors announced this weekend.

Patricia Buchan, 29, of Newark admitted Friday to scalding the 3-year-old boy she was entrusted to her care, according the Essex County Prosecutor's Office.

Buchan told the court that, on Dec. 4, 2018, the 3-year-old urinated on the floor in her son’s room, according to the ECPO.

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She admitted telling the child to take off his clothes, get in the bathtub and then took a pot of boiling water from the stove and poured it on the boy’s lower body, resulting in second-degree burns, the ECPO said.

Under the terms of a plea agreement, Buchan will face up to five years in New Jersey State Prison. She must serve 85 percent of her sentence before she is eligible for parole.

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“This child lived his first three years in a house of horrors,’’ said Assistant Prosecutor Michael Morris. “Today’s plea resolves the case without the ordeal of the children having to testify.”

Newark public preschool officials alerted authorities to the abuse. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 6.

The boy and the five other children lived in the home, including four of Buchan’s biological children, ranging in age from 1 to 7. Buchan now has a fifth child with whom she was pregnant when the incident happened on Dec. 4, 2018, the ECPO said.


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