Adam Morton: Man Pleads Guilty After Putting Toddler Into Running Clothes Dryer

Adam Morton, a New Hampshire man who put his girlfriend’s toddler into a running clothes dryer, pleaded guilty to assault on Tuesday.

The assault occurred in August, when Morton was taking care of the 2-year-old boy while his girlfriend was at work. The toddler was rushed to the local emergency room after his mother returned home from work and found her child burned. She reportedly told police that she had been dating Adam Morton for only a short time, but hadn’t believe him to be a violent man.

Unfortunately, she was wrong.

Court documents revealed disturbing details into the alleged abuse of the toddler boy, saying that the child suffered second-degree burns on his back and arms as well as burns and blisters on his feet after being put inside a clothes dryer. Morton told police the boy was in the dryer’s drum for just one revolution of the dryer’s cycle, but Dr. Lawrence Ricci, who conducted the forensic examination, and after looking at the injured toddler, determined that the toddler had been left in the dryer for a more prolonged period.

“There were lesions on the lower back that looked like they could have been healing burns and incidentally, the two circular lesions correspond to bolts on the inside of the dryer…[and] the distribution of the burns indicates either that the child was moving fairly dramatically and or the dryer was moving.”

Michael Sousa, the father of the abused boy, returned to the child’s town in order to care for him and his three siblings after the abuse incident occurred. He says that his son was feeling back to normal within a month of the incident, but also says that although the toddler may fortunately be too young to remember his mother’s boyfriend putting him into the dryer, he will have physical scars that will last a lifetime.

Sousa also says he doesn’t agree with the charges of aggravated assault being brought against the man who did this to his son.

“My son is two years old. He aggravates half the world, does that mean half the world gets to go after him. No way. It’s not even aggravation. He’s a two year old child and children, sometimes especially with four of them, Adam did have four of the boys over the summer, the tension gets a bit high, but if he admits to put a two year old into a dryer to me it sounds more like attempted murder than aggravated assault.”

Morton is scheduled to be sentenced February 2. Prosecutors are recommending a two-year sentence.

In another chilling case of child abuse, a woman was brought up on charges after her badly burned toddler told officials in chillingly simple words, “Mommy did it.” For more on that, click here.

What do you think? Is a two-year sentence sufficient for a man pleading guilty to putting a toddler into a running clothes dryer?

[Image via www.worldwideweirdnews.com]