Family Remembers 'Sweet Little Boy' Who Was Allegedly Tortured to Death by Barber with Lumber: Prosecutors

Prosecutors allege the barber was babysitting the child at the time

Content warning: The following article contains disturbing descriptions of alleged abuse.

A California barber has been accused of torturing and murdering a 6-year-old boy, with prosecutors alleging he beat the child with a piece of lumber.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office announced the charges against Ernest Lamar Love on Wednesday, Sept. 4.

Love, 41, has been charged with one felony count of murder, one felony count of torture and one felony count of child abuse causing death, the district attorney’s office said in a news release. If convicted on all the charges, he will face a maximum sentence of 32 years to life in prison, plus five more years.

Love pleaded not guilty to the charges and is being held without bail, officials said. PEOPLE was not immediately able to reach an attorney for him.

The 6-year-old boy, Chance Crawford, died at Children’s Hospital of Orange County on Tuesday, Sept. 3, from his injuries.

Prosecutors allege in the release that Chance's mother dropped him off at Love’s Placentia barbershop last Thursday after his third day of school. The first grader’s mother was working the night shift at St. Joseph’s Hospital and had asked Love to babysit her son.

Prosecutors allege that Love beat the boy after he urinated in his pants at a local park, according to the release.

The release alleges video surveillance shows Love walking back into his barbershop with the piece of lumber and “a reluctant” Chance following him inside.

The release says that “doctors at CHOC discovered that much of Chance’s flesh was missing from his buttocks, leaving raw, gaping wounds, along with subdural hematoma, extreme brain swelling, and other injuries consistent with violent shaking.”

“The little boy also had [a] healing fracture on his shoulder blade,” states the release.

Prosecutors allege in the statement that Love beat the boy with the lumber and then poured hydrogen peroxide on his wounds. Afterwards, Love allegedly forced the 6-year-old to do push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks, before the child collapsed, according to the statement. Love then took the boy to the emergency room around 1:30 a.m. local time, the statement alleges.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement that “words do not exist to describe the absolute terror this little boy was forced to endure – all at the hands of someone who was supposed to be protecting him, not torturing him to death.”

A GoFundMe page was set up to assist Chance's family.

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"Chance was a loving, sweet little boy, with a beautiful smile,” the family wrote on the page. “He was always happy, always kind, and always polite. Chance would light up any room he walked in.”

Chance's family added that the 6-year-old boy “loved watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Sesame Street” and that “he was smart, inquisitive, and a great artist.”

“Chance started drawing pictures of his favorite character Mickey Mouse and they looked like they came from a Disney movie,” the family continued. “He was a gifted child and had so much life to live. We’re devastated by the loss of our beautiful, sweet, kind, bright and shining star. This pain is horrible and our family will never recover from the loss. A sweet little boy was taken from us too soon.”

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

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