17-Month-Old Tot Dies After Scalding Bath, Stepdad Charged with Murder

CALUMET CITY, IL — When police officers walked into 1600 Astor St. in Calumet City last week, just after midnight, they found little Noah Rudder on the floor and began CPR. Just 17 months old, life was leaving his burned little body in the wee hours of the morning.

Noah suffered third-degree burns in scalding hot bath water. Third-degree burns, the worst of burns, penetrate all three layers of skin, into the bloodstream, even into major organs and bones. The skin turns leathery, waxy, brown or white after exposure to extreme heat. Nerve endings are destroyed.

The police officer pushed on his little chest with their fingers.

After the police came the paramedics, who took over CPR for little Noah and rushed him to Franciscan St. Margaret Health in Hammond, Indiana, where at 1:55 a.m. on March 16, all efforts to revive him stopped. Little Noah breathed no more.

On Tuesday, March 22, his stepfather will appear before a Cook County judge to answer for that death. Gregory Miles, 30, who lived in the Calumet City home with Noah's mother, is charged with first-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and endangering the life of a child. Police said Miles waited for hours after the boy's scalding-hot bath before calling 911. Instead, he tried to put ointment on the tot's fatal burns and Google searched the Internet for treatment advice.

Little teardrops are tattooed beneath each of Miles' eyes. Did he shed real tears at the tortured death of his stepson?

In an initial court appearance Saturday, Cook County Judge Maria Ciesel-Kuriakos set bail at $1 million.

His lawyer said the scalding was an accident, and the boy's mother had complained to the apartment building's landlord about the water's fluctuating temperature and unreliable water heater. Attorney Brian Shields said Miles was an "exemplary father" to Noah, according to several media reports, and his two siblings.

DCFS is investigating him on suspicion of abuse and neglect and monitoring the surviving children.