Baby was put in safe, fridge before being microwaved

Remember the story of Joshua Mauldin, the man accused of burning his 2-month-old daughter, Ana, in a microwave? Turns out that was just a part of what happened: According to a Galveston police detective, Mauldin has also confessed to physically assaulting Ana and putting her in a hotel safe and refrigerator. The details came from Detective Holly Johnson, who testified in a bond-reduction hearing for Mauldin in Galveston yesterday morning:

"(Mauldin) became agitated," Johnson said, from the witness box in the 212th State District Court in Galveston.

"He picked her up from one bed and threw her onto another one. He then hit her, punched her, in the groin area. He placed her in the hotel-room safe and shut the door for approximately five seconds.

"He then took her and put her in the refrigerator and shut the door for about five seconds."

After that, Johnson said, Mauldin took the girl out, put her in the microwave oven and turned it on.

Johnson said Mauldin confessed to the series of events during an interview May 14. The testimony came out as Mauldin's defense attorney, Charles Kauffman, was asking Judge Susan Criss to reduce Mauldin's bail to $100,000 from the $250,000 set last week. Criss denied the motion, and Mauldin remains in the Galveston County Jail.

Also on Tuesday, Mauldin's wife, Eva Marie, spoke with KHOU again and told about the morning of May 10, when Joshua Mauldin burned the baby. She said she went downstairs at the Seawall Boulevard motel where the couple was staying — they had come to Galveston from Arkansas because Joshua said God called him to become a minister on the island — and when she returned, she found Joshua yelling and Ana lying on the bed. "She wasn't even crying — she was just doing her little whine. Her ear was gray, her left hand was swollen and cracked open, and her face, she was burned on it," Eva Mauldin said. Joshua initially told her he had spilled boiling water on the baby, but finally admitted that he had put her in the microwave and turned it on for about 10 seconds. "He said that he did it, but he, like, seen himself doing it, but he couldn't stop it. When he come to, that's when he stopped and he pulled her out,” she said.

Eva Mauldin — who over the weekend told KHOU that Satan led Joshua to hurt the baby — told KHOU she doesn't think it's fair that Ana is now in the care of foster parents. "I need my daughter and my daughter needs me, especially right now," she said.