Utah father charged with putting 4-month-old son in scalding water

Pat Reavy, KSL.com

EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah (KSL.com) — An Eagle Mountain father was charged Wednesday with putting his 4-month-old son in 130-degree water, causing second-degree burns.

Matthew Nielsen Beck, 41, is charged in 4th District Court with aggravated child abuse, a second-degree felony.

On Nov. 11, Beck told investigators he put his infant son in a bathtub and let the water run while he attended to another child, according to charging documents.

“(He) said there were was about 3 inches of water in the tub when he put the baby in the tub, that he left the water running while turned to ‘hot,’ and that the tub became full almost to the point of spilling over the side,” the charges state.

Despite the child crying, he was left in the scalding water for about five minutes, prosecutors believe. When Beck removed his son from the tub, he “noticed that some of his skin was white and peeling off,” the charges allege.

But rather than call 911, Beck spent an hour putting Vaseline and cold water on the infant, according to charging documents. When the boy was finally seen by a doctor, he was found to have second-degree burns over 40% of his body “that are expected to progress to third-degree.”

“The baby will require skin grafts and his toes may have to be amputated. The burns are from the infant’s feet up to his hips or lower abdomen and the lower half of his left arm,” the charges say.

The infant was taken to Primary Children’s Hospital where doctors told police Beck’s explanation of what happened didn’t match the injuries his son sustained. For example, “a full tub would have put the water level at the infant’s chest, which does not match the burn patterns on the baby,” the charges state.

Investigators determined “the temperature of the water at (Beck’s) house was found to be between 131-133 degrees.”

Beck’s wife, who was not home at the time, told detectives Beck previously put another infant child in a tub of extremely cold water “until he turned blue” as a form of punishment, and allegedly ssaid “this would ‘toughen him up,'” according to a police booking affidavit.

“When confronted about using cold water as a punitive action against another son when he was also an infant, he initially suggested that he did it to improve the child’s circulation. After continued questioning, Matthew admitted that he did this to the infant as a form of punishment.”