Detectives Call 9-Year-Old Tulsa Boy's Abuse 'Torture' [Warning: Graphic Content]

Warning: the following story includes descriptions of child abuse that are disturbing.

Detectives say "torture" is the only word they can use to describe the treatment of a 9-year-old boy, whose father and stepmother were arrested Monday evening.

The boy told detectives his hands and ankles were tied against a door, while he was repeatedly whipped with a leather belt. They say the beatings happened over a period of time, because some of the wounds were still bleeding, others had scabbed over and some were already scars.

Detectives say the beatings were deliberate and designed to inflict as much pain as possible.

5/13/2013 Related Story: Tulsa Couple Arrested, Accused Of Abusing 9-Year-Old

Police say the boy's father and stepmother, Eulalio Rangel and Andrea Lang, had taken him to a family get together Sunday in Okmulgee, and when the boy fell off a trampoline, his aunt saw some of his injuries.

They say the aunt tried to intervene and call police, but the boy's father left with him.

When police tried to go to the house to check on the boy, no one answered the door. Tulsa's child crisis detectives learned Monday he'd been kept from school, so they began searching for him and didn't give up until they found him.

"Without their persistence, no doubt, that boy would've continued to be very deliberately beat, and possibly, down the road, - even worse than that - they may have killed him," said Sgt. Brandon Wycoff.

Police say the boy's injuries were from his legs to his shoulders, front and back, and the severity of the abuse was shocking, even to the child crisis detectives, who see children mistreated, abused and neglected every day.

Detectives say he was hit with such force, blood had splattered on the walls, the door and the floor. Then, they say, the father poured alcohol on the boy's open, bleeding wounds.

"Scabbed over in places, fresh wounds still bleeding, so it's as bad on--a beating like this, as bad as what we've seen," Wycoff said.

Police say Rangel inflicted most of the beating, but they say Lang sometimes helped hold the boy during the beatings. They say the boy's father was matter of fact when talking to officers.

"It seems that, from where I stand, in their mind, it was their way of discipline. But obviously, knowing that it was crossing the line, because they didn't want people to find out, didn't want him to be seen at school, and as soon as family members saw it, tried to hide it," Wycoff said.

Police say the couple knew what they were doing was wrong, because the boy's step mother told them she had a social work degree and had worked with kids at the McClure Park Community Center in the past.

Detectives say the father told them the boy needed discipline, because he was acting up on the bus. But school leaders told police the boy is a good kid.

Both Lang and Rangel were jailed on complaints of child abuse and child neglect. Charges have not yet been filed.