Police in Pennsylvania say a man and his girlfriend are charged with brutally murdering the woman’s 3-year-old son.
Gary Fellenbaum and Jillian Tait were arrested Thursday morning in West Calin Township.
On Tuesday, authorities were called to their residence on a report of an unresponsive child. EMTs found 3-year-old Scott McMillan suffering from bruises, lacerations and puncture wounds all over his body, according to WPVI.
Fellenbaum, Tait and another witness confessed that the boy had been beaten with blunt and sharp objects, whipped, taped to a chair with electrical tape and beaten and hung up by his feet and beaten, leading to his death.
According to police, they beat the boy to death using homemade weapons like a whip, a curtain rod and an aluminum strip.
Tait told police the beating began when the boy wouldn’t eat his breakfast.
“Little Scotty McMillan is dead,” Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said. “Over a three day period … he was systematically tortured and beaten to death. He was punched in the face and in the stomach. He was scourged with a homemade whip. He was lashed with a metal rod. He was tied to a chair and beaten. He was tied upside down by his feet and beaten. His head was smashed through a wall.”
Tait said Fellenbaum routinely beat her 6 and 3-year-old boys. On one occasion, she said he strung the boys up by their feet and beat them while she and Fellenbaum laughed.
The 6-year-old boy is now in the care of relatives.
Fellenbaum and Tait are both charged with murder and Hogan said he will be seeking the death penalty.
Law enforcement veterans told WPVI that they had never seen a child abuse murder case like this one.
This story was originally published by KTLA sister station WGPH and was distributed by Tribune Broadcasting.