A 6-year-old Florida boy who drowned in a bathtub had been tortured and locked in a dog cage — and routinely put in a chokehold to put him to sleep, according to shocking child abuse charges against his mom and stepdad.
Little Anthony Rouse was pronounced dead in a Tampa hospital on April 24, two days after his mom found him face down in a water-filled bathtub in their home in Eagle Lake, according to an affidavit obtained by The Post.
Mom of six Alize Seymore, 25, later said she ordered the boy to take a bath in a darkened, powerless room in anger at him peeing himself — leaving him alone for at least 20 minutes while she scrolled TikTok.
The autopsy later also found “multiple open superficial wounds” and scars that were deemed “signs of abuse,” the affidavit said.
It sparked an investigation that has now left the mom and her husband, Anthony’s 27-year-old stepdad Tre Seymore, charged with multiple counts of child abuse and tampering with a witness.
Officials told WTSP News that more charges are expected to follow — with the affidavit noting how the dead boy’s 10-year-old brother claimed he saw his brother being drowned by their stepdad.
The sibling, whose name was obscured, told investigators that Tre Seymore “took the victim to the bathroom to go ‘swimming,'” describing him holding his head under underwater.
He “watched Tre drown” his brother, he alleged in interviews, although the stepdad has to date not been charged with the killing.
In those interviews, the brother also detailed repeated abuse — claiming that “Tre performs a chokehold on all the boys to get them to go to sleep.”
He also said that “he and the other children would get rewarded for ‘beating up'” their brother, usually with food or candy.
“The beating includes hitting and putting the victim in a dog cage where he stays for hours,” the affidavit said.
Sheriff’s deputies said they found the cage in the garage — along with “multiple images” and at least one video stored on the boy’s mom’s phone of him looking “terrified and traumatized” in the cage.
In text messages, the Seymores “frequently discussed … wilfully putting the victim into a dog cage as a form of torture and malicious punishment,” the affidavit said.
In one message weeks before the death, his mom allegedly texted her husband: “Bro imma end up killing this fat bitch, my house getting is f–km dirty cause him.”
On April 21 — the day before Anthony’s deadly bath — his mom texted: “I want to put him up for adoption,” the affidavit said.
As well as finding the dog cage, officers said that the kids’ bedroom lock was backward “to allow for the children to be locked within the bedroom.”
“The bedroom did not have electricity and was filled with clothing items which were soiled with urine and feces” — including inside a closet, the affidavit said.
The dead boy’s biological dad, Andre Rouse, told WTSP that he had been fighting to regain sole custody of his son leading up to his death.
He’d had custody for three years, but lost it a year ago after a brief stint in jail for domestic violence.
“That really messed with him mentally,” he said of his son forced to then live with his mom, “someone he’d only seen … a handful of times.”
The dad said that when he got news that his son had been taken to the hospital, “My body shook. I dropped to my knees and started sobbing. I knew it wasn’t going to end well.”
Still, he said he had no idea just how bad the abuse was. “I still can’t wrap my head around it and it still really hurts,” he told the local outlet.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office told WTSP that the investigation is in the hands of the State Attorney’s Office, where more charges are expected to be filed.
The attorney’s office did not immediately respond to messages seeking updates.
