In a harrowing case from Tennessee, a woman has allegedly admitted to brutally torturing and murdering her boyfriend’s 3-year-old son. Authorities report that she confessed to extinguishing a cigarette in the child’s ear and burning his genitals with a lighter before fatally beating him.

Keith Horton, the father of the young victim, Kevin Horton, recounted the horrific discovery to local Fox affiliate WHBQ. He described arriving at his home to find his girlfriend, Dominica Mosby, 29, standing outside. “I go in there to see my son, he’s ice cold, he’s purple,” Horton said, recalling the devastating moment he realized his son was no longer alive.

Charged with first-degree murder, Mosby allegedly confessed to police that she killed Kevin on a Friday. According to documents obtained by CBS affiliate WREG, she admitted to torturing the child with a lit cigarette and lighter, stomping on his stomach with her boot heel, and striking him repeatedly in the torso and chest — all because he refused to lie down.

The narrative provided by Mosby suggested that Kevin was unwell and vomiting, following being dropped off by his aunt. However, the child’s aunt, Jasmine Reece, vehemently disputed this claim in her interview with WHBQ. “He was never sick,” Reece stated, dismissing Mosby’s account as a fabricated story to mislead others into believing Kevin was sick when he left her care that morning.

Police say Mosby claimed Kevin was not feeling well and vomiting after being dropped off by his aunt, who denies that the child was sick when she left him with Mosby on Friday morning.

“He was never sick,” the aunt, Jasmine Reece, told WHBQ. “That was just a story she told to get her story together, to put in people’s heads that he was sick leaving my house. The whole time, he wasn’t sick.”

A GoFundMe set up by Reece says Kevin was in “perfect health” when she dropped him off with Mosby. “She never called anyone not even his father to let anyone know that something was wrong with him until it was too late,” the description alleges.

Mosby allegedly told cops that she woke up around 3 a.m. Saturday and found that Kevin was unresponsive. She called police and the boy was pronounced dead at the scene. He suffered a lacerated liver, internal bleeding, burns on his ear and genitals, and extensive bruising, according to the medical examiner’s report.

Mosby was taken into custody and charged with murder and aggravated child abuse. She was being held without bond and scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.