By STEPHANIE THOMPSON
People Editor
A case involving a father who was accused of burning his six-year-old boy with a cigarette lighter was dismissed.
Robert William McMullan submitted an order to dismiss without prejudice in the Third District Court of Judge Nena James on a felony child abuse charge. The request was granted.
Pursuant to a plea agreement with McMullan’s juvenile case, the case was dismissed without prejudice. Prior to the plea agreement, McMullan and his wife Bree attended a nurturing parenting class offered by the Sweetwater Family Resource Center. They both successfully completed the class on July 22.
According to court documents, on Jan. 15, 2014, a Green River Police officer was advised that a six-year-old boy may have been abused. The boy had told a school employee that his dad had burned him with a lighter.
The boy also told a Department of Family Services employee that he was playing with a lighter that he found behind his bed. He said he and his brother were trying to light a candle with the lighter when his dad, McMullan, came into the room and caught them. The boy said his father was anger and allegedly held the lighter to the boy’s hand. He said he cried when his dad did that because it hurt.
The boy’s five-year-old brother apparently told school employees that his father had held a lighter to his brother’s hand and it hurt his brother.
Bree McMullan, the children’s mother, was also interviewed by the officer. She said she was still in the front room when her husband went to see what the children were doing. She said she heard Robert say “Do you want to know what it feels like to get burned?” She said she does not believe Robert burned her son. She said her son did have a burn though and she put mustard on the hand and wrapped his hand with a bandage.
Robert was interviewed and said he did not burn his son with the lighter. He said he was holding it about three inches from his son’s hand.
The officer and DFS employee noticed a circular burn mark on the boy’s hand that had blistered.
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