A man accused of stabbing his 8-year-old son with a screwdriver at a Santa Ana sober living facility told the child he was going to “send him home to God,” prosecutors said Thursday.
Christopher Lee Kearns was charged Wednesday with attempted murder and child abuse and endangerment, both felonies. He also faces sentencing enhancements for inflicting great bodily injury and the personal use of a deadly weapon stemming from the alleged Feb. 10 attack.
Kearns allegedly stabbed his son twice in the neck with a screwdriver and slashed his hands with a knife while the boy was visiting him at the facility, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. The boy’s mother and stepfather were waiting in the driveway of the sober living home when the attack occurred, prosecutors said.
According to the District Attorney’s Office, Kearns allegedly put the boy on his lap to talk about God, then put his hand over the child’s mouth and nose, held him down on a bed and told him he was “going to send him home to God” before stabbing the boy.
Another resident in the facility heard the boy screaming and pulled the defendant off the victim, who was taken to Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange, where he was hospitalized for several days, prosecutors said.
Kearns did not enter a plea at his arraignment Wednesday, which was rescheduled for March 1 in the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.