— Four adults were arrested last week on charges of child abuse and six children removed from their home after an 11-year-old special needs child reportedly showed up at school with severe bruising to his body and cuts and swelling on his head.

The boy’s mother and three other adults in the household admitted to holding the boy down on a table while repeatedly hitting him with a cutting board and rubbing his face against the wall when he threw a fit, according to court documents.

However, a family member said a medical condition may have played a part in the extent of the boy’s injuries.

Gina Delynn Murasky, 39, Russell Scott Herrick, 34, Karen Denise Horner, 31, and Jason Radell Harnsberger, 37, were arrested Thursday on third-degree felony warrants for injury to a child causing bodily injury - family violence.

An assistant principal at Juan Seguin Elementary school alerted Weatherford police that Murasky, the boy’s mother, brought him to school Feb. 15 and requested they not contact CPS about scratches on his face, according to investigators’ affidavits.

The boy - diagnosed with mental retardation and functioning at about a second grade level, according to his school - was taken to the nurse’s office due to concern about the scratches on his head and face. There, the school nurse located severe bruising on his body, court records stated.

The CPS investigator noted the boy had bruises on his back, including between his shoulder blades, bruising covering more than 80 percent of his buttocks, solid bruising on the back of his thighs and bruises on his calves. Scratches and bruises on his biceps, scratches on his chest, a half-inch laceration to the back of his left ear lobe and swelling to the left side of his forehead area were also noted in the CPS investigator’s affidavit.

CPS reportedly responded to 14 allegations of neglect, physical abuse or sexual abuse of the boy or his now 16-year-old half-sister between 1995 and 2011, all ruled out or found unable to determine.

The Feb. 14 incident occurred between 4:30 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. in the 1200 block of Hanover Street after several household members returned from a doctor’s appointment for the boy, according to several accounts reportedly provided to investigators by family members. Horner rewarded her four children with candy, while the boy did not receive any and became angry, according to the affidavits filed.

The boy threw a fit, throwing things and hitting and kicking, and kicked Horner in the stomach but did not injure or bruise her, Horner reportedly told investigators.

Horner admitted swatting him with her hand at one point, and Murasky said Horner threw a bag of medicine bottles at him, according to accounts in investigator statements.

The boy threw ketchup against the wall during the incident and Harnsberger told investigators he picked up the boy off the ground by his ears after he refused to clean it up and rubbed the boy’s face against the light switch where the ketchup was, according to the police affidavit. He reportedly told investigators that after rubbing his face against it “like you would a dog on the carpet,” he then paddled the boy “five or six times.”

At some point, Murasky reportedly put her son on the kitchen table.

The adults said Herrick repeatedly struck the boy - reportedly described by his mother as weighing about 60 or 70 pounds - with an approximately 6-inch by 8-inch plastic cutting board, as Murasky and Horner held him by his arms and legs face down, according to an affidavit filed by Weatherford Police Detective Troy Luecke.

All adults weighed more than 200 pounds, according to Parker County Jail records.

Other scratches on the boy’s face were received when two of the adults told Horner’s 8-year-old son to tackle the 11-year-old and he did so, gouging at the older boy’s face, the 8-year-old reportedly told investigators.

After the incident, the 11-year-old ran from the house and was picked up by his grandmother, who had been at work at the time, according to court documents and the family.

She took him to the police station, where he was given a walk through of the facility by an officer and told why he needed to mind, his grandmother said.

After authorities became involved at school the following morning, the boy was taken to Cook Children’s Medical Center for examination. He and his half-sister were removed from the family and placed together in protective foster care that same day.

Horner’s four children, ages 18-months to 8-years, were picked up by their biological father and no contact allowed between her and the children, according to CPS documents.

At one point during the interviews with investigators, Horner reportedly said “he’s being abused,” according to the CPS affidavit. The 11-year-old was the only one in the house spanked with the cutting board, Horner reportedly told investigators.

Herrick said he wanted to call police but the boy’s mother told him not to and to spank the boy, and he stated he agreed that the boy was hit too many times, according to court documents. Herrick also reportedly told investigators everyone in the house “beats on him” and the boy acts aggressive.

CPS also found “reason to believe for emotional abuse to [the boy’s 16-year-old half-sister, also a special needs student] by Gina Murasky for inciting her to physically harm her younger sibling.”

All four were released from the Parker County Jail on $30,000 bond, and a hearing is scheduled for next week in the CPS case.  

The boy is bipolar and has significant mental issues the family has been attempting to deal with for many years, the boy’s maternal grandmother, who lives next door, Pat Rodgers, told the Democrat.

The boy often goes into rages when told no and has a history of kicking his mother in the stomach, Rodgers said. “You have to be around him to know.”

His family takes him to regular psychiatrist visits, as well as twice-a-week doctor visits, Rodgers said. She has been unsuccessfully trying for years to place the boy somewhere he can get the help he needs, Rodgers said.

“I hate that it happened like this but if it gets [my grandson] some help, that’ll be good,” Rodgers said.

“They shouldn’t have whipped him and shouldn’t have held him down,” Rodgers said.

However, Rodgers believes another issue may have played a part in the incident.

Family members had been complaining about the boy’s tendency to bruise to his doctors prior to the incident, Rodgers said, adding all it took to make him bruise was to grab his hand. Rodgers said the family recently had blood work done on the boy, information she hopes has an impact on the charges her daughter and the three others are facing.

“I love my grandkids and I don’t want them hurt,” Rodgers said.

A voicemail left for Murasky was not returned immediately Thursday evening and the Democrat was unable to reach Herrick, Horner or Harnsberger for comment.