Two women who the Los Angeles police say tortured a 5-year-old boy have been finally aprehended. The boy's mother, 24-year-old Starkeisha Brown, turned herself in Friday night and will be held in custody without bail. She is charged with one count of torturing.

Her live-in girlfriend, 21-year-old Krystal Matthews, has been also aprehended on Friday when she showed up for an appointment. The latter was been charged with willful harm or injury to a child and her bail was set at $100,000.

The two African-American women have allegedly savagely tortured the young boy, causing permanent physical and psychological trauma. After being rescued Monday by a stranger who found him abandoned, the authorities have determined that he has been subject to routine beatings, deprivation of food and water, and torture. He has apparently been burned with cigarettes on his body and genitals and was forced to put his hands on a hot stove, leaving him unable to open his hands.

The shocking status in which the five year old was found has led to Lt. Vincent Neglia of the LAPD's Abused Child Unit saying in a statement that the abuse by his mother and her girlfriend was "akin to a level of torture we hope our military personnel would never encounter."

The abuse took place in a poor neighborhood close to the intersection of the 110 and 105 freeways. The people in the area are predominantly African American and Latino and the LA Times quotes data from the U.S. Census Bureau which shows that the poverty rate in the neighborhood is nearly triple the national average.