Man pours boiling water on gay couple sleeping in bedroom, faces aggravated battery charges

A young gay couple is recovering from severe burns after a man poured boiling water over them while they were sleeping, in a possible hate crime.

Marquez Tolbert and his boyfriend, Anthony Gooden, were sleeping after a long day in a Gooden's College Park apartment when Gooden's mother's boyfriend, Martin Blackwell, walked in on them sleeping and decided to pour scalding water over them.

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"Martin pulled me up and said, 'Get out of my house with all that gay,'" Tolbert said. "I couldn't stop screaming."

Blackwell, however, does not own the apartment, though he is a frequent visitor. The apartment belongs to Gooden and his mother.

The ordeal has left both of the boys in pain and with scars from the experience.

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"The pain doesn't let you sleep. It's just, like, it's excruciating, 24 hours a day, and it doesn't go anywhere," Tolbert, who has second- and third-degree burns on his neck, back and arms, said. "It doesn't dial down, anything. It's just there."

"I can barely think straight because the burning, the stinging is everywhere," Tolbert said.

Tolbert spent 10 days at Grady Hospital undergoing surgery to replace his skin, and Gooden was released from the hospital on Friday.

Blackwell is currently in custody and is facing two counts of aggravated battery after the incident.

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