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Both parents of a 3-year-old southwest Harris County boy beat him with bamboo sticks and poked his feet with chopsticks in a violent attempt to remove demons from his body, a prosecutor said Tuesday in a court hearing.
Assistant Harris County District Attorney Darin Darby, citing a witness statement from the boy’s 6-year-old sister, on Tuesday presented new details of the attack on Saturday to state District Judge Debbie Mantooth Stricklin in the case against Phung Tran, 36.
She and her husband, Jacky Tran, 35, are charged with injury to a child with serious bodily injury, a first-degree felony. He was arrested on Saturday. His wife was charged on Monday. Both face up to life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors say the parents, Buddhists and vegetarians, believed demons entered the boy through meat he ate.
Medics flew the boy to the hospital, where he was being treated for skull fractures. Officials said he is expected to survive.
The Trans remain in Harris County jail on $100,000 bond each. Phung Tran’s attorney, Charles Brown, said he wanted a psychiatric evaluation done soon. Child Protective Services placed the couple’s older daughter in foster care and planned to ask for custody. The Trans are scheduled to appear in court again May 14.
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