A 19-year-old mom sits behind bars after police say she admitted to burning her 13-month-old son’s genitals with a flat iron, according to the arrest affidavit.
On April 26th, police arrived at the Tahlequah City Hospital in Oklahoma where a baby boy was being treated for several broken bones and severe burns to his genital area.
Jodi Rock / Cherokee County Police Department
Police say that when they arrived at the hospital, the baby appeared to be “glassy eyed” and “withdrawn.”
Authorities say Jodi Rock fabricated several different stories to explain her son’s injuries, initially pointing blame at her aunt, uncle and boyfriend.
According to the arrest affidavit, the mother then confessed to “burning [the baby] with a flat iron hair straighter…she then said she took and closed the iron [on the baby’s] private parts.”
Rock then told police that the burned area “raised in a white blister which fell off,” according to the arrest affidavit.
The arrest affidavit states that the mother said either she or her boyfriend could have hurt the baby’s arms as they “both play rough with him…pulling him up by the arms and throwing him up in the air and on the bed.”
DHS immediately took custody of the baby boy while he was being treated at the hospital for his injuries.
HLN reached out to the attorney for Jodi Rock, but calls were not immediately returned.
The 19-year-old mom is currently being held on a $200,000 bond at the Cherokee County Detention Center on charges of felony injury to a child.
