3 'women' accused in torture death of 7-year-old boy — but cops say 2 of the suspects are males who co-parented with mom

Three "women" are accused in the torture death of 7-year-old Ohio boy — but authorities said two of the suspects are male who co-parented the victim with his mother.

Cincinnati police said the Mercy Rookwood emergency department called Thursday after a woman claimed that someone was trying to kill her and her boy.

'We saw injuries that would indicate physical beatings, blunt force injuries from a striking device on the face, torso, back, upper and lower extremities ...'

"We have somebody that came in and kind of just dropped herself on the floor. She's barefoot. She thinks that her partner's trying to kill her, that they took her son," the worker said in the call to police.

"She's saying that he's hiding him up in the attic. She is sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth and barefoot," the worker added.

Hours later officers were called to a home on Madison Road in Oakley over a "suspicious death."

They found William Evans-Ellis bound and wrapped with duct tape in a closet. Police arrested two males who had been co-parenting with the victim's mother, who also was arrested.

Cincinnati police detective Kyle Smith said in court that the case is "one of the most disturbing examples of child abuse" he'd ever seen.

"From what we could see, we saw injuries that would indicate physical beatings, blunt force injuries from a striking device on the face, torso, back, upper and lower extremities. Impact injuries to the back of the head," Smith said.

"We believe that there was, for lack of a better term, some water torture involved," he added. "We believe the victim was choked under water, held under water for a long period of time. There was some burn torture involved, and the victim was found duct taped in positions that immobilized him."

The boy also was revealed to have been "mentally handicapped."

An attorney for 38-year-old Kaitlin Evans — the boy's biological mother — admitted that she had not done enough to save her child but denied that she had killed him. Evans accused one of the two other suspects of killing the boy.

The attorney for 23-year-old Nessa Keaney said he tried to administer "treatment" to the boy and claimed Keaney was the "least culpable" for the boy's death.

A detective testified that the third suspect, 33-year-old Kirby Rankin, admitted to his part in the abuse and had implicated Keaney and Evans as "active participants" in the abuse of the boy.

The victim's biological father also spoke in court.

"Willie was my life, and I trusted you to care for him. They kept him from me for the past nine months over lies," the father said.

A WXIX-TV news video described the suspects only as "people," and other outlets described them as women — but Keaney's arrest record lists him as a male, and Rankin also is listed as a male, while Evans is listed as a female.

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Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge Rodney Harris set each suspect's bond at $1.1 million — $1 million for murder and $100,000 for child endangering, WXIX said, adding that all three pleaded not guilty and are expected back in court later this month.

Officials apparently missed a chance to save the boy months prior to his death, when Rankin attacked a woman in a parking lot amid a driving dispute. The woman suffered fractured teeth, a concussion, a neck injury, and a torn meniscus — and asked police to charge Rankin with a felony. He was charged only with a misdemeanor and aggravated menacing.

"I asked to go to [the] grand jury. They refused. I kept being told because she was hit one time it wasn’t a felony, which is absolutely absurd," Lance Bunnell, the husband of the victim and a retired law enforcement captain, said.

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