To borrow a phrase...

Rope, tree, scumbag - some assembly required.

As a horribly burned baby returned home yesterday, the Department of Social Services opened an investigation into what other torture 19-month-old Matthew Kruse may have endured at the hands of his teenage Taunton mom's boyfriend.

Alan Johnson, 20, who is not the tot's father, was being held on $7,500 cash bail after police said he confessed Thursday night that he had repeatedly put the flame from a disposable lighter to Matthew's flesh while the child's mother, Jennifer Kruse, 19, was at work.

I can't even find the words to comment further on this.