The latest incident allegedly occurred last June, while the boy, who lives out of state, was visiting Peterson at his gated home in The Woodlands. A photo, allegedly texted by Peterson to the boy's mother, shows a head wound to the boy covered by two bandages. Other photos, allegedly taken weeks later, reveal a scar over his right eye.
The text messages also describe an exchange about what happened. They contain numerous misspellings and shorthand:
Mother: "What happened to his head?"
Peterson: "Hit his head on the Carseat."
Mother: "How does that happen, he got a whoopin in the car."
Peterson: "Yep."
Mother: "Why?"
Peterson: "I felt so bad. But he did it his self."
The text messages go on to show Peterson saying he was disciplining his son for cussing to a sibling.
"It's absolutely criminal," said Randy Burton, a former chief prosecutor of family crimes in Harris County, and founder of the advocacy group Justice for Children.
"You break the skin, you have bleeding, much less permanent scars, that is a crime," Burton said.
But no charges were ever filed. Sources confirm the mother filed a report with Child Protective Services, but the outcome of any CPS investigation is unclear.
So is the method of the delivering the wound, according to the text messages.
Mother: "What did you hit him with?"
Peter never directly answered, but later replied: "Be still n take ya whooping he would have saved the scare (scar). He aight (all right)"
"This is very damaging information," Burton said.
Damaging, Burton said, because prosecutors in Montgomery County can use it as evidence in the felony case against Peterson.
"To prove intent, that it was not an accident, and to show that it was a course of conduct," Burton said.
"It wasn't a one-off," he said.
A spokesperson for Peterson's attorney said the law office of Rusty Hardin and Associates had no comment.