Cops: Man burned son with iron to force confession to stealing $1
By Brian Stanley Sun-Times Media bstanley@stmedianetwork.com May 8, 2012 4:52PM
Josue E. Manrique
Joliet police said a man burned his 11-year-old son with a clothes iron to force the boy to confess to stealing a dollar from him.
Josue E. Manrique, 35, was charged with of aggravated domestic battery and aggravated battery of a child.
Cmdr. Brian Benton said Manrique admitted he’d been drinking Saturday night and acknowledged being on edge before returning home about 3 a.m. Sunday.
“He’d been watching a boxing match where his fighter had lost and was having transmission problems with his car on the way home,” Benton said. “When he came home, he noticed a dollar missing from his dresser and that apparently set him off.”
Police say Manrique took a leather belt and woke his son up by hitting him with it. After striking the boy several times, Manrique turned on the iron and burned the boy on his forearm and top of his hand when the boy denied taking the dollar.
Then he threw his son on the bed and put the iron on the boy’s chin, Benton said.
Manrique then told the boy to go back to sleep and also went to bed, police said. Later that morning the boy told a relative what happened, and Manrique was arrested at his home at 10:42 a.m. Sunday
“He initially claimed he had been struggling with the boy to keep him from burning himself with the iron, but later changed his statement,” Benton said.
Manrique was ordered held in lieu of $100,000 bond Monday.
