Background: The 400 block of Manning Street in Kinston, North Carolina (Google Maps). Insets (from left to right): Joshua Stockton and Amy Gauthier (Lenoir County Jail).
In eastern North Carolina, a man and woman have been detained following allegations of child abuse involving the man’s 3-year-old autistic son, with claims that the woman stood by as the abuse occurred.
The Kinston Police Department revealed that 37-year-old Joshua Stockton is facing multiple charges, including four counts of assault with a deadly weapon in the presence of a minor, child abuse, exposure of a child to fire, assault by strangulation, and felony assault on a disabled individual. Meanwhile, 40-year-old Amy Gauthier has been charged with three counts of felony aiding and abetting, along with five counts of misdemeanor aiding and abetting.
The charges stem from an investigation initiated on Thursday at a residence on the 400 block of Manning Street in Kinston, a community of approximately 20,000 residents located about 70 miles inland from the Atlantic coast. Authorities reported that Gauthier and her juvenile son had an altercation concerning a cellphone.
According to the police, officers discovered that the argument arose from the juvenile having video evidence of Stockton abusing the 3-year-old child. Responding to the call, officers arrived at the scene around 6:35 p.m.
The juvenile presented the officers with the video, which reportedly contained explicit footage of the abuse. Court documents obtained by Law&Crime elaborate on the alleged offenses.
The magistrate’s order indicates that Stockton attempted to change his son’s soiled diaper by “restraining” him, allegedly using his body weight on the child. He was seen placing his hand on the child’s back, covering the child’s mouth and nose, and then forcefully slamming the child onto a mattress while continuing to cover the child’s mouth and nose to stifle cries.
“Mr. Stockton is then seen removing his left hand and raising his right hand above his head and bringing his hand down with force across the face of the child with enough force to depress the head of the child several inches into the mattress,” the document goes on. The police department said that “due to the nature of the evidence,” they “immediately expanded” their investigation.
The apparent attack caused bruising across the face, neck, and legs of the young child, authorities added, with visible ligature marks “by strangulation placing hands over the mouth and nose of the victim.”
The court document noted that Stockton was “outweighing the victim by several hundred pounds” and, on the day in question, locked the toddler into a room by “boarding the top half of the doorway with ply board and using a locking gate for the bottom half of the doorway to prevent anyone from entering or exiting without key to lock.”
Authorities praised the older boy for contacting authorities about the alleged abuse.
It is unclear whether the 3-year-old child was also Gauthier’s and whether the older boy was Stockton’s.
The Kinston Police Department contacted the North Carolina Department of Social Services (DSS), and when DSS workers arrived, they took custody of the five children under the couple’s care. Stockton and Gauthier were arrested.
Stockton is being held in the Lenoir County jail under a $1 million bond, while Gauthier is jailed under a $100,000 bond. After appearing in court on Friday, they are both set to return on Jan. 30.
