An Oklahoma woman and her husband were arrested earlier this month after a neighbor noticed the man’s son was covered with bruises and bug bites and called 911.
Joseph Wiles, 43, was allegedly present when his 30-year-old wife Mekayla Beard brutally whooped his 8-year-old son with several household items including a wooded paddle that broke in half during the process.
Harrah Police officers responded to the family home on July 17 after a neighbor that the boy had not been seen in a long time until she met him that day and noticed suspicious bruises all over his body.
During questioning, the boy told detectives Beard started beating him “wherever she wanted here, here, and everywhere” showing his bruises to officers, when he couldn’t read a word on a book.
Beard admitted to beating the boy when he began “thrusting around” and telling her she was “not his momma.”
“Beard advised the only reason she used the paddle on the children is because Child Protective Services told her that ‘as long as it’s on the bottom or anywhere else, it’s okay,” the affidavit reads.
“Beard reiterated to me that CPS told her ‘as long as it’s on the bottom, it’s not abuse.”
Police Chief Marty Burns described the boy’s bruises as “the darkest black and blue I’ve ever seen” noting that he was “covered from head to toe” with bug bites.
