A Pittsburgh man is behind bars for savagely beating his girlfriend’s 11-year-old son to death for nine hours. According to the Daily Mail, Cynthia McKee returned home from work Saturday to find her son Donovan bloodied and barely breathing on the floor.

Another two hours went by before McKee called police to her apartment at Rochelle Towers on Knox Avenue at 11:45 p.m.

Donovan was taken to Mercy hospital in uptown Pittsburgh, and later to Children’s hospital in Lawrenceville, where he was pronounced dead. The coroner concluded he died of multiple injuries to his head and body.

McKee told police that her boyfriend, Anthony Bush, 29, told her to say Donovan fell from an open window.

Bush was arrested and charged with homicide and child endangerment. Bush – who is six feet five inches – told police he beat Donovan for nine hours with a belt and three sticks as punishment because the boy refused to vacuum the apartment.

Bush told police, “I did it. I did it. It’s my fault.”

He said that during the beatings, a stick broke and he ordered Donovan to pick up the pieces. When Donovan refused, he got a new stick and continued the beating. He told police he used 3 sticks in all.

At one point Bush used a common household needle and thread to sew an open wound in the boy’s arm.

Investigators told the Tribune Review they found blood-stained sheets, tissues and a belt, wooden sticks, metal bars and blood on the ceiling and walls in Donovan’s bedroom.