Mother beats child who took check to buy book, say Del. cops

(CBS/AP) A Delaware woman hit her 9-year-old son several times with an extension cord, because he took a check to school with the aim of buying a book at a school fair, say New Castle County police.

It wasn't the only time 42-year-old Serena Wardlaw may have abused one of her children, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The boy told a school nurse about the incident after she asked about his injured arm. He had taken a check to buy a book at school, and Wardlaw apparently got so upset, "she then struck him several times about his body with an extension cord," according to police.

Family service officials had passed their suspicions passed along to police on Friday.

Her 7-year-old twin daughters also had "prior injury marks about their body that were consistent with being struck with the same object," police said.

Wardlaw was arrested and charged with felony assault and child endangerment, the newspaper reports.

Wardlaw was charged with five counts of child endangerment and four counts of second-degree assault.

She was released on $21,000 unsecured bail, and forbidden to have unsupervised contact with the children.