WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — Officials with the Wichita Falls Police Department are seeking the public’s help finding a woman who has failed to show up for two court hearings after being released from jail on her charge of scalding a two-year-old.

Ashley Nicole Johnson, 31, has been placed on the Crime Stoppers Most Wanted List. She has red hair and green eyes and is 5’1″ tall and weighs about 120 pounds.

If you have information and your tip leads to her arrest, you could earn a cash award.

Authorities say Johnson first failed to show for a hearing on her charge in May, and her bond provided by her attorney was ruled forfeited and an arrest warrant was issued. Jail records show she was booked back into jail on July 25 and released the next day on an $80,000 bond.

A new jury pretrial hearing was set for August 4 in 89th District Court, but again ended with no sign of Johnson, and Crime Stoppers added her to their Most Wanted list.

The injury to a child charge was filed in 2018 when officials at Kell West Hospital notified police about a badly burned 2-year-old in the emergency room. Detectives and a Child Protective Services worker began an investigation after talking with the victim’s biological mother who had brought him to the ER.

She told them she had picked her son up at his father’s residence earlier that evening. She said she was told by Johnson the boy accidentally burned his left leg and foot in the bathtub.

Investigators said the burn appeared to be an immersion scalding burn starting above his left ankle. The burn had a distinct line of demarcation and went all the way around his leg and foot.

The detective said that pattern indicates a body part was forcibly held in hot water. It also didn’t appear to be accidental because there was no irregularity to the pattern, such as a splash or drip marks, which would have happened if the child reacted suddenly and caused hot water to hit other parts of his body.

The boy also had small bruises on his left thigh just above his knee, which appeared to the detective to be finger or thumb marks, as if someone was holding tightly to his leg.

The boy was transferred to Parkland Hospital’s pediatric burn unit for additional treatment. Later, detectives spoke with Johnson at her residence where she lived with the boy’s father. Johnson said she was giving the boy a shower because he had defecated on himself and the boy’s father was at work. She said she turned off the water and left him in the bathtub and went to another room to get a towel.

While out of the bathroom, Johnson said she heard the water turn on and heard the boy screaming. She returned to the bathroom and said the boy had become caught between the bathtub and toilet with one foot out of the tub and that he had turned the hot water on full blast with his other foot under the faucet.

Johnson told detectives she removed the boy from the tub and took him to another room to examine him. She said both his feet were red, but the left foot was worse. She denied intentionally burning him.

Doctors at Parkland Hospital told detectives the boy had second and third-degree burns on his lower left leg and foot. The boy had to undergo skin graft surgery to repair the damage.

If you have any information about this crime or any other felony crime, call Crime Stoppers twenty-four hours a day at 940-322-9888, or if you are calling long distance, call 1-800-322-9888.

From the time your tip is placed into Crime Stoppers to a possible reward being issued with board approval, you will remain completely anonymous throughout the whole process.