'He put my head under water,' boy recalls

Witnesses for the prosecution testified Friday during the trial of a Whitefish man accused of forcing his then-girlfriend’s 5-year-old child into a bathtub full of scalding water, severely burning the boy.

“I said, ‘It’s hot,’” Myccah Hermsmeyer, now 6, testified in Flathead County District Court.

“He said, ‘It’s not hot.’”

“I said, ‘It’s hot’ again.”

“He said, ‘It’s not hot,’” the child told the court, describing how Juan Miguel Vasquez left the bathroom “after he put my head under the water and I started kicking.”

While Vasquez was out of the room, the child said he tried getting up to turn the temperature lower, but Vasquez returned and “turned it back hot.” He said Vasquez wouldn’t let him get out of the tub.

Vasquez, 28, is on trial on charges of assault on a minor, aggravated assault and criminal endangerment, all felonies.

The boy’s sister Skyleigh Hermsmeyer testified that a household punishment for lying was to get dish soap in your mouth.

At the Ramsey Avenue residence on Oct. 24, 2008, the boy apparently was receiving this punishment when he spit up from the soap and needed a bath to wash it off.

So Vasquez drew up a bath.

What happened next remains unclear.

During opening statements Thursday, defense attorney Noel Larrivee said the burns were accidental, saying the child had been reaching up to adjust the faucet himself.

The child accidentally turned the hot water on too high, Larrivee maintained, causing him to recoil, slip, fall and hit his head, leaving him unable to get out of the shallow tub as it quickly filled with water. Meanwhile, Vasquez had stepped out briefly to do a load of laundry, Larrivee said.

Larrivee also said the water at the house got hot very quickly.

But on the witness stand Friday, the boy’s mother, Nicole Foiles, said that although the water heater had been recently replaced, she wasn’t aware there were problems with water getting too hot.

The boy’s two older sisters were home at the time of the incident, but the layout of the mobile home was such that from where they were standing in the kitchen, they couldn’t see what was going on in the bathroom.

The boy suffered second- and third-degree burns to more than 40 percent of his body and was treated for almost three months at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. He needed extensive skin grafts.

Foiles was visibly weeping as she described coming home from work that evening.

“I saw my baby laying on the bed, naked, and he was crying and screaming for me and he didn’t even know I was there,” she said.

Since the incident, she said, she has heard him scream in his sleep.

Although she said Vasquez hasn’t been physical with her, when asked if she had knowledge of him being physical with her children, she responded, “Yes.”

Seattle Police Department Detective Donna Stangeland, who interviewed the boy a few days after the incident, described him as “very emotionally upset, crying, sobbing and shaking” when asked about the event, becoming “so upset I was quite concerned for his health.”

She said he indicated a fear of Vasquez.

When Larivee accused Stangeland of asking leading questions to shape the boy’s responses, she said, “I think some of those questions could be construed as leading” but maintained that was merely because she was “repeating back information he [the boy] had already reported.”

Prosecutors also played a tape of the 911 call Vasquez made immediately after the incident. Listening to the heartbreaking screams and cries that could be heard in the background, Vasquez covered his face with his hand.

If convicted of abusing the boy, Vasquez could face as long as 35 years in prison and a $150,000 fine.

Prosecution testimony will continue Monday. The trial is expected to continue through Friday next week.

Reporter Melissa Weaver may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at mweaver@dailyinterlake.com