In Atlanta, a young gay male couple were hospitalized and in serious surgery for days — and remain in severe pain — after the mother’s boyfriend of one of them doused them with boiling water while they slept, WBS TV Channel 2 Atlanta news reports.
Marquez Tolbert, 21, and his boyfriend, Anthony Gooden, were asleep after a long day’s work in the apartment Gooden and his mother own.
That’s when her boyfriend, Martin Blackwell, 48, came in and threw scalding water on them.
According to Tolbert, Blackwell shouted, “Get out of my house with all this gay [expletive].”
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Tolbert also said that Blackwell had previously harassed them, asking if they were having a relationship. (Tolbert said he denied it.)
Tolbert spent 10 days in the hospital having skin grafted from his thigh onto his burned back. Gooden just got out of the hospital.
“The pain doesn’t let you sleep,” Tolbert said. “It’s just excruciating, 24 hours a day…”
Blackwell was kept from posting bond by the LGBT liaison to the Atlanta Police Department, who also said that, though there are no hate-crime laws in Georgia, federal officials are looking at the possibility of charging Blackwell under U.S. hate crime laws.
Reportedly, Blackwell told police, “They’ll be all right. It was just a little hot water on them.”
Tolbert was baffled as to what compelled Blackwell to commit his hateful crime.
“Like, where was your head at?” he asked. “Why would you do this?”