Chad and Cynthia Wilkins of Lafayette were charged Monday with beating their 16-year-old son with a baseball bat last week.

Detectives were sent to their home in the 3500 block of Golden Lane about 11 p.m. June 21 to check on the victim’s well-being, when the two were interviewed and arrested, according to police records.

More than two weeks prior, 40-year-old Cynthia Wilkins had posted photos on Facebook that had previously been reported to police as depicting injuries. The images were accompanied by belittling messages, according to the Tippecanoe County Prosecutor’s Office.

She had deactivated her Facebook account earlier this month, but she learned June 21 that the victim had reactivated it, a probable cause affidavit states.

By her own account to police, she grew angry and grabbed her son by the neck, wrapped her arms around him and carried him into her bedroom to discuss the Facebook issue, according to the affidavit.

Chad Wilkins, 42, initially told police that he yelled at the boy and grabbed a baseball bat, but didn’t touch the victim with it. He later said the situation got out of hand and he started “jabbing” the victim in the torso area, court documents state.

His wife told police that he’d only hit the mattress, not the boy, with the bat.

Their accounts didn’t match that of their son, nor did it account for the injuries documented by investigators.

The boy had several red marks on his body, including scratch marks on his neck, a large red mark on the top of his left should consistent with a rug burn, bruises on his face and back and an abrasion on the top of his head, the affidavit states.

The victim further had showed signs of a 4-inch-by-1-inch bruise on the upper left arm that appeared to have been inflicted by a blunt object matching the shape of the baseball bat, which police collected as evidence.

The victim told police that Chad and Cynthia Wilkins had thrown potatoes at him and that Chad Wilkins had punched him in the head and struck his arm with the barrel of the bat about 15 times.

Chad Wilkins faces three felonies: battery with a deadly weapon, neglect of a dependent and battery on a household member in the presence of a child younger than 16. He was released June 23 from Tippecanoe County Jail on $500 cash plus $10,000 surety bond.

Cynthia Wilkins faces two felonies: battery with a deadly weapon and neglect of a dependent. She was released June 23 from Tippecanoe County Jail on $500 cash plus $5,000 surety bond.