Crime
The defendant allegedly burned one child with a cigarette lighter and another with what appeared to be a heated fork.
May 24, 2026 | 11:12 AM
2 minutes to read
A Chelsea man is facing a dozen charges for violent acts towards two young children, according to prosecutors.
Kener Bautista-Zepeda, 19, has been 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, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
Bautista-Zepeda was arraigned Friday after being indicted earlier in the week. He pleaded not guilty and was held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing May 28, according to court records.
On March 12, 2025, Chelsea police spoke with the mother of one of Bautista-Zepeda’s alleged child victims. She said that he was her boyfriend and that he had pushed and punched her the night before, according to the DA’s office.
When Bautista-Zepeda assaulted the mother, her 2-year-old child began to cry. In response, he allegedly used a cigarette lighter to burn the child on his upper back, leaving a mark about the size of a nickel, prosecutors said.
On April 5, 2026, Revere police responded to Boston Medical Center to investigate an assault on another child. The 3-year-old’s mother told police that several weeks earlier, she noticed burn marks on her child’s arm that appeared to have been caused by a heated fork, the DA’s office said.
The mother said that Bautista-Zepeda regularly cared for her child. She installed a camera in the child’s bedroom, and on April 3, at about 11 a.m., it recorded him “violently assaulting” the child, according to prosecutors.
The recording allegedly shows the child walking towards Bautista-Zepeda with “arms outstretched as if to be picked up,” according to Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Allyson Portney. He then allegedly lifts the child with both hands above his own head and forcefully throws the child down onto the bed, causing the child to cry in pain. Bautista-Zepeda then allegedly struck the child three times in the abdomen with a closed fist.
“Bautista-Zepeda then climbs over the child and places both hands over the child’s mouth and nose, bearing his weight down onto the child through his arms and holding the child down by the neck,” Portney said. “The child is seen on the video struggling to breathe for approximately nineteen seconds as Bautista-Zepeda held his hands over the child’s mouth and nose.”
When the child’s mother confronted Bautista-Zepeda, he fled the state and turned off his cell phone, according to Portney. Authorities located him in Loudoun County, Virginia, earlier this month and took him into custody.
Bautista-Zepeda’s attorney, Lumina Sato, was not immediately available for comment Sunday morning.
Suffolk County offers resources for survivors of child abuse and their non-offending caretakers, including services at the Children’s Advocacy Center of Suffolk County and a specialized program, known as Support to End Exploitation Now, to support trafficking victims. The advocacy center can be reached at 617-779-2146.
Anyone who believes that a child in Massachusetts may be the victim of abuse can contact the Department of Children and Families’ Child at Risk Hotline at 1-800-792-5200.
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