Two people in Houston, Tex. have been arrested for allegedly setting a four-year-old girl on fire last April.
Veronica Harris, 38, and Christen Rogers, 23, are accused of setting their niece on fire while at a motel in 2015 and not seeking treatment for her injuries until the following day.
According to police, the young girl was only wearing a diaper when she was strapped into a chair by Harris. That’s when Rogers “held a lighter to complainant’s stomach and caught complainant’s body on fire.”
The four-year-old child sustained burns to over 30 to 40 per cent of her body.
It took police about a year to investigate the incident before filing charges and arresting the pair.
Officials say the cousins claimed the incident was an accident, with the pair alleging one of them was treating the girl’s mosquito wounds with alcohol when wind somehow carried the flame from a cigarette lighter onto the child’s body.
Harris has been charged with serious bodily injury to a child by omission and Rogers has been charged with injury to a child.
Both appeared before a judge on Tuesday.
The duo remain in jail while the four-year-old girl remains in the custody of Children Protective Services.