Florida man accused of burning girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter with blowtorch while wearing werewolf mask kills himself
A Florida man who was accused of tormenting and torturing his girlfriend's 2-year-old baby girl by burning her with a blowtorch, shooting her with a BB gun, and wearing a werewolf mask to frighten her, has died.
According to an Escambia County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman, the 37-year-old man Andrew Bennett Ross Celauis passed away while at the hospital on Tuesday. Celauis was arrested on April 9 and then attempted to kill himself on May 1 while he was in his jail cell. As a result, he had to be hospitalized where he died around six days later.
The investigators shared that Celauis had also filmed himself torturing the child and had also placed a dog collar on the little girl. He used the collar to shock her awake at night and stood over her while wearing a werewolf mask. Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan shared, "It's the thing nightmares are made of and no child should ever be subjected to this."
At a press conference which was held on Wednesday, Morgan shared, "We had a number of instances where this individual, the suspect would use an airsoft gun to just shoot a sleeping child, for no other reason but to wake the child up and hurt the child. The level of terror that this child was put through, our abuser would wear a mask, a werewolf mask, and the collar that the chief described is a tasing collar for dogs."
"If you want to think of something you could do to a child to terrorize her, this child lived through that," Morgan continued.
An investigation into the inhumane torture was opened when Celauis' girlfriend took her daughter to the hospital to be treated of what she assumed to be a ringworm infection. Morgan shared, "When she took the child to the ER, the ER physicians who are well versed in spotting child abuse quickly determined that that was not any form of ringworm, it was abuse. In this case, it was burn marks."
The mother of the child is reportedly cooperating with the police and has not been charged. "I've been in law enforcement for over 30 years and when I looked at the evidence that I saw here, me and members of my staff were speechless. We are comforted to some degree that this precious child will not be harmed tonight," Morgan continued.
Celauis was charged with probation violation, possession of a weapon, marijuana possession, drug equipment, drugs-health-safety, six counts of aggravated child abuse, four counts of child abuse and three counts of possession of a controlled substance.