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A 4-year-old boy has died after being beaten with a broomstick in Mobile, Ala. — and authorities claim the victim’s assailant was his 9-year-old sister.
According to a statement from Mobile Police, the fatal beating occurred on Feb. 3.
Officers were dispatched to a home that morning “in reference to a medical emergency involving a child,” the statement reads.
Police arrived to find a little boy “unresponsive inside the residence.”
Emergency medical technicians were also called in, and “pronounced the victim deceased on the scene.”
Detectives handling the investigation learned “the child suffered signs of child abuse.”
The statement did not elaborate on those alleged signs.
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Yolanda Coale, 53, the children’s caregiver and aunt, was arrested for aggravated child abuse, the statement notes.
Police have not released the names of the siblings.
The complaint alleges the girl “did willfully torture, willfully abuse and cruelly beat” her brother,WPMI reports.
Coale was arrested the following day. She remains in custody on $150,000 bond.
It was unclear Wednesday if she had entered a plea to the charge or had an attorney who could comment on the allegations.
source: people.com