DELTONA, Fla. – Police said Henry Love woke up an 11-year-old boy at his home and took him over to a neighbor's house, where he dropped him in a pool and dunked him over and over.
"I don't know why he would have done that," neighbor Patty Tutoni said. "Baptism is in the church; it's not in your pool. I don't have any answer for him to do that."
Tutoni said she's been living next to Love for six years and that he's a quiet, decent man.
"Any time I see him, he's always waving hello," Totoni said. "(He's a) very conservative neighbor. I love him as my neighbor, to be honest with you."
According to the police report, Love told authorities he was "awoken from his sleep by God" and that God told him to baptize the boy.
Love tossed the boy into the next-door neighbor's pool in what the child said was "nasty and green water with bugs in it."
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"I never thought he could do anything wrong, especially to his niece or nephew. I can't believe it," Tutoni said.
When the boy's mother found out what happened, she took him to an urgent care doctor, who told her that her son had an eye and ear infection, related to being submerged in unsanitary water.
Love was arrested and is charged with child abuse.