Accounts Differ on Burning of Boy, 6

Although a teen-ager was held Tuesday in connection with the burning of a 6-year-old playmate at a Cudahy motel, witnesses differed over whether the injury resulted from a fight or an accident.

The 14-year-old suspect was arrested Monday evening on suspicion of attempted murder “based on information supplied by witnesses at the scene,” Bell-Cudahy Police Lt. Jim Edwards said.

The victim was in serious but stable condition at County-USC Medical Center.

Roy Skropes, 54, a maintenance worker at the motel, said he “heard the victim say the older boy took the gas, poured it on him, and threw a match on him.”

But children playing with the two boys said they thought the incident--which caused first- and second-degree burns on the victim’s face, neck and left arm--was not malicious.

A group of youths, including the suspect and the victim, Phil Kowal Jr., had found two plastic jugs of gasoline near a garbage dumpster in a lot behind the motel, said Becky Sanchez, 18, a motel resident who watched the incident from a second-floor walkway. While the children were playing with the containers, the gasoline splashed on the victim, she said.

Her brother, Raymond Sanchez, 11, said, “The big boy poured the gasoline all over the ground and the little boy, he came running right through it. When the big boy lit the gas . . . it followed all the way across to where the little boy was standing.”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Becky Sanchez said.

But Skropes said that on several occasions he has had to break up scuffles between the suspect and other children living in the Atlantis Motel, a two-story building in the 7600 block of Atlantic Avenue occupied by low-income and welfare-supported families.

“They fight all the time out here,” Skropes said. “They don’t need a reason. I’ve talked to the boy (the suspect), telling him not to cause trouble,” Skropes said. “And I’ve had to take him to his parents several times after he’s gotten into fights. He doesn’t listen to anybody. . . .”

Luis Zapata, a motel janitor, said that when police asked the injured boy, “Who did it?” the youngster pointed at the suspect and screamed: “He did it! He did it!”

But Zapata also said the injured boy appeared hysterical and could not respond coherently when asked why the older boy allegedly tried to kill him.