Eric Emil Lehtinen Injected Son With Heroin To Delay Divorce: Cops

A Washington state man is accused of trying to kill his 4-year-old with heroin on the day his divorce was supposed to be finalized.

Eric Emil Lehtinen, 37, was found unconscious with his son in their locked Redmond home on Tuesday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. Police say a syringe filled with heroin was sticking out of the boy's chest.

Evidence of ketamine, morphine and codeine was also found in the child's blood. Doctors are unsure whether he will suffer long-term damage.

“I just don’t understand how messed up you have to be to inject your 4-year-old with heroin," neighbor Alex Marchand told Q13 Fox. "Never heard of anything like this, never even had the thought cross my mind of anything like this happening in the world."

Court documents state that Lehtinen wanted to delay the finalization of his divorce from the boy's mother. The two were married for six years.

Ten days before the incident, the boy was living with his mother in San Francisco, but she returned to Seattle for a job interview and was letting her son stay with Lehtinen.

She told police her husband used heroin and ketamine in the past, but that he told her he quit, according to the Associated Press.

Lehtinen is charged with attempted first-degree murder.