Gay YoungCouple Doused with Hot Water WhileSleeping by Mom’s Boyfriend
A young couple is recovering from severe burns after police say a man threw burning water on them -- because they are gay.
The victims told Channel 2’s Nicole Carr that they were sound asleep, resting after a long day at work, when they were attacked.
Marques Tolbert 21 One of the victims
"The pain doesn't let you sleep. It's just, like, it's excruciating, 24 hours a day, and it doesn't go anywhere,” Marquez Tolbert said. “It doesn't dial down, anything. It's just there."
Tolbert believes that the second and third-degree burns along his neck, back and arms are scars of hate.
"Why else would you pour boiling hot water on somebody?" Tolbert asked.
The 21-year-old and his boyfriend, Anthony Gooden, were severely burned last month when the men say Gooden's mother's boyfriend walked in on them sleeping in Gooden's College Park apartment and poured scalding water all over them.
"I can barely think straight because the burning, the stinging is everywhere,” Tolbert said.
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| Martin Blackwell 48, gay hater perpetrator |
Tolbert spent 10 days at Grady Memorial Hospital undergoing surgery that took skin from his thigh to replace skin on his back.
Gooden got out the hospital on Friday.
Martin Blackwell, 48, remains in the Fulton County Jail, charged with two counts of aggravated battery.
"Martin pulled me up and said, 'Get out of my house with all that gay,'" Tolbert said. "I couldn't stop screaming.”
According to a police report obtained by Channel 2 Action News, Blackwell said he was disgusted by the men's relationship, telling police, "They'll be all right. It was just a little hot water on them."
"Like, where was your head at? Why would you do this?" Tolbert asked.
An Atlanta Police Department LGBT liaison assisted in the case to make sure Blackwell did not make bond, police said.
Although they don’t exist in the state of Georgia, the liaison said federal hate crime charges are a possibility in the case, and an upcoming hearing will address that.
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