© 2009 The Associated Press
Feb. 19, 2009, 4:10PM

AINESVILLE, Texas — A Cooke County grand jury has indicted a couple on four counts of injury to a child after an incident in which the children were burned with sulfuric acid.

The children's mother, Cynthia Darlene Stout, 43, and her boyfriend, Tracy Lynn Escobedo, 27, were each charged with four counts of injury to a child on Feb. 12, according to county officials.

The two were being held in the Cooke County Jail and are scheduled to be arraigned March 27.

Authorities say the children, then ages 14, 7, 4 and 1 1/2, were splashed with sulfuric acid and severely burned in a pickup outside a restaurant near Woodbine in January.

Authorities say Stout told them Escobedo tried throwing acid on her during an argument in the pickup but splashed the children instead.

Under the care of Child Protective Services, three of the children remain hospitalized, Cooke County District Attorney Janice Warder told The Dallas Morning News on Thursday.

The youngest child, whom Escobedo is believed to have fathered, was released from the hospital a couple of weeks ago and placed in a foster home.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6271433.html

Emphasis added by H4K Editor