A cruel woman allegedly told a little girl “I don’t love you” as she seared her arm with a hot iron. Police charged Celie Placius, 43, with child abuse resulting in great bodily harm on Thursday after receiving reports of a child in danger at a day care centre.
Employees at the facility had raised the alarm after spotting suspicious burn marks on the youngster’s forearm. Officers from the Palm Springs Police Department contacted the woman, whose relationship to the child has not yet been shared, to question her over the injury.
But on questioning, she said she had “no knowledge” of how the little girl sustained the horror injury. She later said she may have hurt herself while playing with other children.
Further questions were raised when Placius allegedly changed her statement, saying she was ironing clothes with the girl close by, but when she stepped away, she returned to find a “sticky substance on the side of the iron”. According to court filings, the girl told the woman she’d used the iron on her school folder. The suspect said she didn’t see the injury at the time. At 6.30pm on the day they were called, police held an interview with the youngster, who said she’d been playing with her brothers when Placius carried out an act of horrific cruelty.
“Placius then used a hot clothes iron to burn [the victim’s] right forearm in two different places while stating, ‘I’m not your friend and I don’t love you anymore’ to [the victim],” a court affidavit states. “Placius later applied cream to the wound to make it better.”
The incident reportedly happened while the youngster was sitting at the dining room table. The girl added that she burned her arm, and the school folder. On inspecting the girl’s body, they found the “new and bubbling” burn on her forearm, and another healed burn on her hand which seemed to have happened some time before.
During follow-up interviews, Placius contradicted herself on several occasions, according to Law&Crime. She was inconsistent on the nature of the burn injury, whether she had applied cream to help it heal, or whether the girl had picked up the iron to play with it. However, she maintained that her actions had not been the cause of the injury.
“The injury to [the victim’s] right arm and hand do not appear to be accidental in nature or self inflicted,” police determined. “The two burn marks appear to be from prolonged exposure to a high degree of heat causing significant damage which would likely result in great bodily harm or permanent disfigurement.”
Placius was taken into custody and transported to the Palm Beach County Jail for processing. She is currently being held on $5,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court again on May 27, 2025, records show.
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