Grandma Speaks Out About Boy in Oven Case

The grandmother of the boy who hid in an oven to escape the man he calls dad speaks out about the case.

A few days ago, Connie Chatman spoke to FOX 9 about the boy she helped raise.

"I’m hurt. I’m very hurt because I know the feeling of being abused. I was abused when I was a child," said Chatman.

The boy spent Sunday, his 12th birthday in foster care, less than a week after allegedly being abused by his mother Debra Chatman, and her friend William Hurley.

Debra Denise Chatman, 27, was charged Friday with endangerment of a child and malicious punishment of a child. Chatman admitted to dragging her 10-year-old son back into the apartment after he had already been burned with an iron and whipped with an extension cord.

William Tajahn Hurley, 23, was charged with child abuse. According to the criminal complaint, officers were called to Hurley's apartment on the 2000 block of Elliot Ave. S. in Minneapolis, where the boy told police he was beaten for being in his mother's bedroom, which upset Hurley.

According to investigators, Hurley was angry the boy was in his mother's room, so he punched him, beat him with an extension chord and burned him with this hot iron. When the boy ran outside their south Minneapolis apartment yelling for help, his mother Chatman allegedly brought him back in, at which point he tried to hide in this small kitchen oven.

Chatman told authorities she turned on the oven so the boy would get out. After getting out of jail last week, Hurley expressed some remorse, but not innocence.

Connie Chatman said Hurley later stopped by the apartment at 2 a.m. to talk.

"I was shocked," said Chatman.

She said he admitted to beating the boy for what he called misbehaving. The boy remains with child protective services, along with his two younger siblings. Debra Chatman is in custody at the Hennepin County Jail.