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By Dennis Romero
A man from Florida's Gulf Coast was arrested for allegedly putting on a werewolf mask and repeatedly abusing the daughter of his 2-year-old girlfriend.
"We are somewhat reassured by the thought that this precious child will not be hurt tonight," Chip Simmons, deputy chief of the Sheriff's County Sheriff's Office, told reporters.
The suspect, 37-year-old Andrew Bennett Ross-Celaius, had previously been tried for the murder of another 2-year-old child in 2006, but a jury found him not guilty, said WPMI. , affiliate of NBC News, Mobile, Alabama.
Ross-Celaius has been arrested on suspicion of child sexual abuse and possession of a controlled substance, authorities said.
The sheriff of Escambia County, David Morgan, said at a press conference on Wednesday that he had found that the violence was sometimes "indescribable".
"It's the thing the nightmares are made of," he said. "No child should ever be subjected to this."
The suspect, Ross-Celaius, allegedly threw bottles partially filled with liquid on the girl while she was sleeping, shot him an airsoft gun, applied him an electrified dog training collar, electrocuted and used a lighter to burn it, authorities said. He sometimes wore a werewolf mask during the assault, they said.
Simmons described it as "systematic harassment, if not torture." Morgan called it "terror".
"While the violence was happening, he was holding the mobile phone and was recording from the cell phone," said the sheriff.
The sheriff's officials allege that when the victim's mother recently took the girl to the hospital to cure what she thought was ringworm, health professionals discovered that burn marks were the result of abuse.
Investigators believe the mother was unaware of the diagnosed abuse, but she was arrested for alleged negligence and has since been released on bail, Morgan said.
Further investigation revealed a cell-phone and home-based surveillance video of Ross-Celaius abusing the toddler, Sheriff officials said. The evidence indicates that the abuse lasted at least several months, although the investigators stated that they were still watching videos.
"Additional charges will result from the continuation of the investigation," Morgan said.
He said that he was "unconfirmed" if the girl had been sexually assaulted.
Another Florida man, Eric Furnan, 36, was arrested for allegedly destroying evidence after Ross-Celaius called him from prison and told him to do so, sheriff officials said.
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