Burnsville Man Accused of Beating Stepdaughter with Fireplace Poker

A Burnsville man has been charged with malicious punishment of a child after authorities say he hit his teenage stepdaughter and her boyfriend with a fireplace poker.

Cornelius Romelle Shaw, 42, who lives in the 700 block of 145^th Street East, faces a gross misdemeanor charge in connection with the May 26 incident. The charge carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $3,000 fine.

According to the criminal complaint against Shaw, Burnsville police were called to a hospital on the morning of May 26 and learned from the boyfriend of Shaw’s stepdaughter that Shaw had caught the two of them in bed together that morning and went after his stepdaughter with a fireplace poker.

The boyfriend told police that he sneaked into his girlfriend’s room through a sliding-glass door – “an action which he had done frequently in the past” – and when Shaw came into the room the next morning to wake up his stepdaughter for school, he became enraged.

The boyfriend said he was hit several times as he tried to “hastily dress and exit the residence.” As he was running out of the room, he said, he heard his girlfriend say, “You can’t hit me like that.”

Police went to the stepdaughter’s school to check on her welfare, but she wasn’t there, according to the complaint. An officer then went to Shaw’s home and asked to speak to his stepdaughter; Shaw told the officer that nothing had happened, the complaint says.

“When confronted with the details of that morning, Shaw became agitated and uncooperative,” the complaint says.

When the officer insisted that he needed to check on the stepdaughter’s welfare, Shaw called her downstairs. The officer asked if she was all right; she replied that she was fine and went back upstairs, according to the complaint.

“Shaw continued to be uncooperative and would not provide officers with all the information they requested,” the complaint says.

The next day, social services authorities reported that the stepdaughter had suffered injuries after being struck with a metal fireplace poker. The girl provided a statement in which she told police a story similar to her boyfriend’s about the incident.

The girl said she was sitting on a couch when Shaw began hitting her repeatedly with the fireplace poker. According to the complaint, the victim had a bruise, a cut and swelling beneath her left wrist, and similar bruising and swelling above her left knee.

Officers subsequently executed a search warrant at Shaw’s home, where they found a set of fireplace tools with the poker missing. Shaw arrived while his home was being searched and was arrested.

Shaw told authorities at the police station that he discovered his stepdaughter and her boyfriend in bed, and that he started to hit the boyfriend after the boy pushed Shaw and hurt his back. He admitted striking his stepdaughter with the fireplace poker after chasing her boyfriend out of the house, the complaint says.

“Shaw admitted he should not have hit his [stepdaughter], but stated that if she did it again he would ‘probably beat her [expletive] again,” the complaint says.