See also: Jeremy Yachik, Ex-Cop: No Jail Time After Beating Daughter for Eating Carrots
The case's weirdness begins with Kizer's name. The Colorado Springs Police Department lists him as Lee Duane Kizer, but his Facebook page is under Duane Lee Kizer. The latter features photos like this one....
...and this one.... ...as well as lots of funny videos and items devoted to the Colorado Mammoth. As for his most recent item, shared in July, it's cryptic and strange: "Well Facebook. This is my last post. I'm done running in this rat maze. I'm laying down and giving up. One less set of lungs sucking air."The "lungs sucking air" phrase becomes more ominous in the context of a police report naming Kizer the next month.
The affidavit, accessed by KKTV in the Springs, maintains that Kizer was in charge of watching the two children of his girlfriend, Aurora Deleon, at her apartment while she was at work.
As for what the kids were supposed to do in Deleon's absence, the document states that they were instructed to kneel in the corner of their bedroom from the time she left until her return.Moreover, they'd been told not to sit back on their calves while doing so -- and when the aforementioned fourteen-year-old leaned back, Kizer allegedly lashed out with extreme and shocking violence. He's said to have beaten the boy, dunked his head in the toilet and then held him under cold water in the bathtub until "his body started to shut down," KKTV reports.
Kizer was subsequently arrested, and when a KKTV reporter went to chat with Deleon, she went into full freak-out mode on-camera, screaming and ranting that "this is between me and my kids and the man that did it" and "I lived it, I know."She was considerably less talkative after she received a misdemeanor child-abuse citation of her own, hanging up on the reporter asking about it.
Yesterday, Kizer made another court appearance, this time to enter a guilty plea regarding a single count of child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury.The Colorado Springs Gazette reports that Kizer denied the toilet-and-bathtub parts of the accusations against him, as well as claims that he'd threatened to kill the boy and asked "if that was the day he wanted to die." But he's said to have acknowledged hitting the teen open-handed between twenty and thirty times.
As a result, Kizer is facing between ten and fifteen years behind bars, followed by five years' worth of parole. Here's a look at his booking photo, followed by the KKTV report from August; note that you may have to crank the volume on the latter in order to hear it.
Send your story tips to the author, Michael Roberts.
