MIDWEST CITY, Ok. (KFOR) – A couple in the Oklahoma City area was arrested this week on child abuse charges after police were tipped off by a relative.
Taylor Ainsworth, 23, and her boyfriend Cody Wayne Hudson, 28, were booked into the Oklahoma County Jail, each facing one count of child abuse by injury.
NBC affiliate KFOR-TV reports that Ainsworth’s sister called Midwest City Police on August 27, claiming Ainsworth admitted to their mother that she had beaten Hudson’s 9-year-old son. The sister said she had seen the boy the day before and was “covered in bruises,” according to court documents.
When officers showed up to the home in the 1400 block of McGregor Drive to do a welfare check, Ainsworth and Hudson claimed the boy had been at Ainsworth’s mother’s house since the weekend. Police searched the house and left after not finding the boy.
“We’re getting the runaround. Nobody wants to tell us the truth,” said Midwest City Assistant Police Chief Sid Porter. “They say he’s not there, (with) someone else. Officers leave and then turnaround and go right back three minutes later because they find information he wasn’t somewhere else.”
The officers searched again and found the boy “in the washing machine covered by a blanket,” according to court documents, where he was allegedly told by Ainsworth and Hudson to hide while police were at the home.
“The child was covered in bruises from the top of his head to the bottom of his legs,” wrote an officer in a probable cause affidavit. “He had multiple large bruises on his face and a black eye.”
“To put clothes in front to try to hide him, so the police can’t find him, and threaten him if he says anything, it’s just very sad,” said Porter. “This poor little boy had marks and bruises on him.”
Hudson allegedly said “It was all me” while Ainsworth — who is six months pregnant — said she didn’t do anything to the boy and thought he was with her mother, saying she had been ordered on bed rest.
However, according to court documents, during an interview with police the boy said Ainsworth bit him “numerous times and choked him, stomping on his left leg and telling him to ‘shut up or I’ll beat you more.'” He also told investigators Ainsworth chokes him with his own shirt while hitting him with a spatula and yelling no one likes him.
The boy said both his dad and Ainsworth beat him with a belt and his dad made some of the injuries, but most came from Ainsworth, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. He also said he’s made to sleep on the floor near the front door or on the bathroom floor.
The boy, as well as three other children, have been placed elsewhere by DHS.
Ainsworth and Hudson both have bond set at $10,000.
