Trial set for Ohio stepmother in scalding death of four-year-old

By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - An Ohio woman will go on trial in September accused of murdering her 4-year-old stepson by holding him in a scalding-hot bath as a punishment, a county prosecutor said on Wednesday.

Anna Ritchie, 25, pleaded not guilty this week to six counts including murder, involuntary murder, felonious assault and endangering a child. A judge set Ritchie's bond at $1 million on Wednesday. A lawyer for Ritchie could not immediately be reached for comment.

Authorities in Warren County, 40 miles northeast of Cincinnati, said Ritchie held the boy, Austin Cooper, in a bath where temperatures reached 134 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.

"After taking him out of the bathtub, his skin was falling off of his legs. He was bleeding significantly," Warren County prosecutor David Fornshell told reporters on Monday.

Cooper was then put to bed by Ritchie, who did not check on him for more than 16 hours, Fornshell said. The boy's father found him unresponsive the next morning and called 911.

A Warren County coroner concluded that the boy's March 16 death was from a combination of shock, blood loss and organ failure caused by the scalding that affected 50 percent of his body, Fornshell said.

The prosecutor said the injuries would have been treatable and that "the child would have had somewhere above a 95 percent chance of surviving."

Warren County Judge Robert W. Peeler set a trial date of Sept. 26. If released on bond, Ritchie must remain under house arrest and is not allowed contact with anyone under the age of 18 years old, the judge ruled.

Cooper's father, Robert Ritchie III of Franklin, Ohio, had recently been awarded custody of the child and has not been charged.

(Reporting by Kim Palmer; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Grant McCool)