Gay Ga. Couple Severely Burned After Mother’s Boyfriend Throws Boiling Water on Them

A young Atlanta couple are recovering after a man severely burned them by throwing boiling water on them while they were in bed sleeping, WSB-TV reports.

“The pain doesn’t let you sleep. It’s just, like, it’s excruciating, 24 hours a day, and it doesn’t go anywhere,” Marquez Tolbert told the news station. “It doesn’t dial down, anything. It’s just there.”

Tolbert, 21, and his boyfriend, Anthony Gooden, were seriously injured last month when Gooden’s mother’s boyfriend walked in on them sleeping in Gooden’s apartment and poured the scalding water on them. 

“Get out of my house with all that gay,” the mother’s boyfriend, Martin Blackwell, reportedly told the couple, who woke up screaming. 

“I can barely think straight because the burning, the stinging, is everywhere,” Tolbert said. 

He reportedly had to spend 10 days in the hospital undergoing surgery to take skin from his thigh and replace skin on his back. Gooden was released form the hospital Friday. 

Blackwell, 48, is currently being held at Fulton County Jail; he is charged with two counts of aggravated battery.

Tolbert believes that the act was one of hate.

“Why else would you pour boiling-hot water on somebody?” he said. 

And, according to the news station, even though Blackwell told the young couple that he did not want them in his house, Blackwell did not even live in the apartment. The apartment belonged to Gooden and his mother, but Blackwell visited frequently. Blackwell, who said he was disgusted by the men’s relationship, reportedly told police after the incident, “They’ll be all right. It was just a little hot water on them.”

“Like, where was your head at? Why would you do this?” Tolbert said. 

According to the news station, an Atlanta Police Department LGBT liaison helped with the case to ensure that Blackwell did not make bond. Although hate-crime charges do not exist in Georgia, the liaison said that federal hate-crime charges are a possibility.

A friend of Tolbert’s family has started a GoFundMe page to help with his medical bills and other expenses related to his recovery.