BOSTON (WHDH) - A Chelsea man was arraigned Friday morning in Suffolk Superior Court on a dozen indictments related to the violent assaults of two young children, Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden announced.
Kener Baustista-Zepeda, 19, is charged with one count of assault and battery, two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a child under 14, three counts of assault and battery on a child with substantial injury, four counts of reckless endangerment of a child, and two counts of strangulation or suffocation. He was indicted by a grand jury earlier this week.
Assistant District Attorney Allyson Portney said that on March 12, 2025, Chelsea police officers spoke with the mother of a child victim who said that the evening prior, her boyfriend, Bautista-Zepeda, pushed her and punched her. Their two-year-old child then began to cry, and Bautista-Zepeda used a cigarette lighter to burn the child on his upper back, leaving a mark about the size of a nickel, Portney said.
On April 5, 2026, Revere police responded to Boston Medical Center to investigate a physical assault on another child. The mother of the three-year-old told police that Bautista-Zepeda regularly cared for her child. She said that she noticed burn marks on her child’s arm that appeared to have been caused by a heated fork. She then installed a camera in her child’s bedroom, which captured Bautista-Zepeda violently assaulting the child on the morning of April 3.
According to court documents, “the defendant next climbs over the child and places both hands over the child’s mouth and nose. He is seen on camera bearing his weight down onto the child through his arms, and, at times, holding the child down by the neck.”
“For approximately 19 seconds on video, this three-year-old child is seen struggling to breathe, trying to move, as the defendant bears weight down on him and prevents him from breathing,” the proseuctor said.
Portney said when the child’s mother confronted Bautista-Zepeda, he fled the state and turned off his cell phone. He was eventually located by authorities and arrested in Loudoun County, Virginia earlier this month.
Baustista-Zepeda is being held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing on May 28.
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