Idaho man arrested for burning his 3-month-old baby with soup, attempted strangulation of mother

An Idaho man has been arrested after he allegedly threw soup on his 3-month-old baby and then assaulted and strangled the woman he was living with. He is facing felony charges of attempted strangulation, injury to a child, misdemeanor domestic battery without traumatic injury, and an enhancement for domestic battery or assault in the presence of a child.

Carlos Swearingen, 23, of Ammon, Idaho, was taken into custody on Tuesday after police got a domestic violence call at around 1:58 am local time. When police arrived, a woman was screaming and running out of the apartment with her children, according to charging documents obtained by the East Idaho News. The woman was “visually distraught, and her two children were crying,” the documents said.

Swearingen, the woman said, had been drinking all night. When deputies saw the man, he had fresh scratches on him that he claimed were “scars from months ago.” According to charging documents, Swearingen became upset after he read something in the mail, but the woman in the home said that it caused him to threaten the life of two family members.

After becoming angry, he took a bowl of hot soup with onions, dumplings, and chili oil, and then “threw it at their 3-month-old baby.” After the soup was burning the baby's skin, the woman rushed to the bathroom in an attempt to clean it off. At that point, Swearingen came up behind her and started “rubbing hot chili oil in her eyes and grabbing her hair," the documents stated.

Swearingen began “striking her on the right side of her head with a closed fist,” charges said. The woman tried to escape the bathroom with the baby and told him to stop since she had the infant in her arms, to which he said he "didn't give a f*ck," per charging documents. She then handed the infant to her 5-year-old. The woman then "curled up on the floor trying to defend herself” as the attack on her continued.

The man then put her in a “rear naked choke hold," according to charging documents. She was then able to get away, grab the children, and flee home. Authorities later spoke to the 5-year-old, who said that Swearingen was “grabbing (her mother’s) hair and saying, ‘Get the bad word out!'" The child also said that the man had "rubbed hot salsa" in her mother's face, so she tried to hide.

Swearingen has been arrested and booked into Bonneville County Jail on a $75,000 bond. He is expected to appear for a preliminary hearing on January 20 and faces up to 26 years in prison.