Texas boy burned at 8 says in deathbed video that attacker raped him beforehand

Robbie Middleton reportedly developed a type of skin cancer that develops after several grafts. Because of this, prosecutors have linked his death to the burning he suffered at 8. Prosecutors say his alleged attacker burned him to silence him about an alleged sexual assault.

The horrific case of a Texas boy who was doused with gasoline, tied to a tree and torched on his eighth birthday appeared to come to a heartbreaking end last year, when the victim, Robbie Middleton, succumbed to cancer.

But now, Montgomery County prosecutors have a new tack for going after the man accused of the heinous act 14 years ago — and finally bringing justice for Middleton.

Montgomery County attorney David Walker said Middleton gave a 27-minute deathbed video statement in which he again named his alleged attacker and said he was sexually assaulted by him two weeks before he was set on fire, the Houston Chronicle reported Monday.

The video is the first time Middleton, who was 20 when he died in April 2011, ever spoke publicly about being raped and provides a possible motivation for why he was later brutalized.

“It was done to prevent Middleton from talking,” Walker told the Chronicle.

The accused neighbor is 27-year-old Don Collins, who was 13 in 1998. Police had detained him in the attack, which occurred on a trail near Middleton’s Splendora, Texas, home, but he was never charged.

Walker told the Los Angeles Times last year that “the case was very, very difficult, with evidence that was not clear or necessarily compelling at that time.”

But Collins was found guilty in 2001 in an unrelated sexual assault of an 8-year-old boy.

He served time for failing to register as a sex offender and was released from prison Sept. 5.

Now that Collins is out of the slammer, Walker plans to file papers to have the case moved from juvenile court to district court as a felony murder case given the weight of the sexual assault claim.

Middleton’s mother, Colleen, told the Chronicle that the family’s lawyers “see this is a strategic move, one that is moving in the right direction.”

She also said her son had told his older sister about the alleged rape two years before he died, but otherwise he wasn’t comfortable talking about it.

During his life, Middleton reportedly required more than 200 operations and developed a type of skin cancer that doctors said occurs after complications from having multiple, painful skin grafts.

Medical examiners ruled his death last year a homicide.

A Texas jury awarded the family $150 billion in a civil lawsuit against Collins last December. But the money was considered a symbolic gesture meant to prod prosecutors to go after Collins in a criminal case, according to reports.