Family remembers ‘sweet boy’ who was allegedly tortured to death by barber with wood: prosecutors

Prosecutors say the hairdresser was taking care of the child at the time.

Content Warning: The following article contains disturbing descriptions of alleged abuse.

A California barber has been charged with torturing and murdering a 6-year-old boy. Prosecutors say the boy allegedly hit the child with a piece of wood.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office announced on Wednesday, September 4, the indictment of Ernest Lamar Love.

Love, 41, was charged with one felony count of murder, one felony count of torture and one felony count of child abuse resulting in death, the district attorney’s office said in a news release. If convicted of all charges, he faces a maximum sentence of 32 years to five years in prison, plus an additional five years.

Love has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail, officials said. PEOPLE could not immediately reach his attorney.

A 6-year-old boy, Chance Crawford, died from his injuries on Tuesday, September 3, at Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

Prosecutors say in an affidavit that Chance’s mother drove him to Love’s Placentia Barber Shop last Thursday after the third day of school. The first-grader’s mother worked the night shift at St. Joseph’s Hospital and asked Love to watch her son.

According to the release, prosecutors say Love beat the boy after he urinated in his pants at a local park.

The affidavit says surveillance footage shows Love returning to his barbershop with a piece of wood, followed inside by a “reluctant” Chance.

The release said that “doctors at CHOC discovered that Chance was missing a large portion of flesh from his buttocks, which left him with open, gaping wounds, as well as subdural hematomas, extreme brain swelling and other injuries consistent with violent shaking.”

“The boy also had (a) healing fracture of the scapula,” the release reads.

Prosecutors say in the affidavit that Love beat the boy with a piece of wood and then doused his wounds with hydrogen peroxide. Love then allegedly forced the 6-year-old to do push-ups, sit-ups and jumping jacks before the child lost consciousness, according to the affidavit. Love then took the boy to the emergency room at about 1:30 a.m. local time, the affidavit alleges.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement that “there are no words to describe the absolute terror this little boy had to experience — all at the hands of someone who should have been protecting him, not torturing him to death.”

A GoFundMe page has been set up to support Chance’s family.

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“Chance was a loving, sweet boy with a beautiful smile,” his family wrote on the page. “He was always happy, always kind, and always polite. Chance lit up every room he entered.”

Chance’s family added that the 6-year-old boy “loved watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Sesame Street” and that “he was intelligent, inquisitive and a great artist.”

“Chance started drawing pictures of his favorite character Mickey Mouse and they looked like they were from a Disney movie,” the family continued. “He was a gifted child and had so much life to live. We are heartbroken over the loss of our beautiful, sweet, kind, bright and shining star. This pain is excruciating and our family will never recover from this loss. A sweet little boy was taken from us too soon.”

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453 or visit www.childhelp.org. All calls are free and confidential. The hotline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in over 170 languages.

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