Page 13 - IAV Digital Magazine #611

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Indiana Aunt's Chilling Words As Boy Nearly Eaten Alive By Rats Who Bit Him 50 Times In Squalid Home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEr1hu3cSgY
By Charlie Jones, Senior US Reporter
The aunt of a six- month-old boy who was
nearly eaten alive by rats said a chilling three words after the infant's injuries were discovered.
Dad David Schonabaum, 32, is serving a 16- year prison sen-
tence, having been found guilty of three counts of child neglect after his son was found missing flesh from the fin- gers and thumb on his right hand, even exposing bone on all five of the fingertips.
He had more than 50 bites to his forehead, cheek, and nose, not to mention
other bites on his arms, legs, feet, and toes, authori- ties said. The babe was found by police in a pool of his own blood and will be left permanently disfigured.
Interrogation footage shows Schonabaum telling police he had been trying to clean their Evansville house
for his wife. In the video from September 13 2023 he said: "Trying to be a good husband and make sure the house is clean for her. She’s coming home to a clean house.”
But while his wife was still away he and his sister-in- law discovered the baby with ter-
rible injuries and according to Schonabaum, the sister-in-law noted: “It’s the fin- gers.”
Mom Angel Schonabaum has pleaded guilty to one count of neg- lect of a depend- ent and received credit for a year of time served, and got three years of probation under a suspend- ed sentence.
In the footage, Mr Schonabaum said he knew it was rats. He can be heard saying: “Instantly, it was the rats because that’s the only thing that could have been in that room all night.”
He admitted knowing about the serious rat problem and claimed he hired Terminex to attempt to fix it. He also claimed no one had previ- ously been bitten by rats before.
In September last year, following a jury's conviction, Prosecutor Diana Moers recounted the harrowing scene, stating that when para- medics and police arrived, "the infant was laying inhiscribina pool of blood and the bites were so bad on his body, including his face, mouth, and extremities that they left bone showing on one hand and he is now permanently disfigured."
Explaining the wife's more lenient sentence, Moers' office took to Facebook stat- ing that Angel Schonabaum "was not residing in the home at the time of the rat-bite incident; however, she was held accountable for the deplorable conditions of the home which she was responsible for when residing there."
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine