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Aiken Man Who Slapped Baby is Arrested Again for Naked Beating of 12-Year-Old Boy

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Travis WhittenAn Aiken man punished his girlfriend’s 12-year-old cousin by making him strip naked prior to a violent beating, authorities said.

Suspect Travis Whitten is the same man who slapped a baby girl in 2007 and left a bruise on her face, according to jail records. The victim in that case was 3 months old.

This time, the 27-year-old suspect is accused of brutally attacking the 12-year-old boy who was living in the Aiken home under the legal guardianship of Whitten’s girlfriend. The incident occurred Feb. 13, but Whitten evaded arrest until this week.

A child cruelty warrant accuses him or torturing the victim and causing “unnecessary pain and suffering.”

According to a sheriff’s report, Whitten was upset that the child got kicked off the bus. At home on Friday the 13th, Whitten ordered the boy to “get in the tub butt naked so he can beat his ass.”

Whitten then beat the child against a wall, shoved him against the bed, ordered him to put his clothes back on and then continued the attack. “When the victim got his clothes on, Travis called him a baby, punched the victim and stepped on his head,” a report says.

Whitten kept punching the boy until he noticed the child’s mother pulling up in the driveway for a visit. That’s when he ordered the boy to act like everything was fine and tell her nothing.

According to the report, DSS had given custody of the boy and his sister to their cousin, who was dating Whitten. She was not at home at the time.

The beating was never revealed until a DSS worker was talking to the child at Ridge Spring-Monetta Middle School on another matter. He told the case worker that he had suffered several bruises on his butt from Whitten’s punishments. He said his butt felt like “a little bit of peanut butter with a lot of jelly in it,” the sheriff’s report says.

Asked about her knowledge of the beatings, the boy’s mother told investigators that she knew the children got whippings but didn’t know how bad they were.

The two children were both removed from the home after the beating revelation. A warrant was issued in February for Whitten, but sheriff’s Capt. Eric Abdullah said they weren’t able to find him. Whitten surrendered earlier this week, he said.

Authorities say the child cruelty charge is just a misdemeanor, like the 2007 charge. In the first arrest eight years ago, Whitten was found guilty of child cruelty and ordered to spend 30 days in jail or pay a $450 fine.

 

Greg Rickabaugh
Greg Rickabaugh
Greg Rickabaugh is an award-winning crime reporter in the Augusta-Aiken area with experience writing for The Augusta Chronicle, The Augusta Press and serving as publisher of The Jail Report. Rickabaugh is a 1994 graduate of the University of South Carolina and has appeared on several crime documentaries on the Investigation Discovery channel.
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