True Story that inspired the movie "David" 1988

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Photos of David Rothenberg, Mom, Marie Rothenberg (some photos courtesy of ocregister.com)

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Dave Rothenberg, David Rothenberg Burn Victim, Charles Rothenberg(photos courtesy of (ocregister.com)

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March 3-10, 1983: Charles had spent most of his life in and out of prison. At the time of the incident, he was divorced from David's mother. He asked to take his son on a trip. After several days he called and asked Marie if he could spend more time with David. Angrily, Marie told him that if they did not get back there he would never see David again. Later that day, they checked into the Buena Park motel, and as David slept (after giving him sleeping pills), he kissed him, poured kerosene all around the bed, lit a fire, and was seen speeding away in a white car. He later returned to watch as the flames engulfed the motel room. Motel guests dragged the boy to safety. A national alert was issued for Charles Rothenberg. Before his arrest Charles called the police to get an update on his son, but he refused to turn himself in. Charles, later confessed that he did it because he thought that his ex wife would never let him see his son again. The incident also took place one day after Charles was to turn himself in for the vandalism and burglary of a restaurant. He was finally arrested on March 10, 1988 outside of a YMCA.
Here is a more detailed article:

Three Years After His Father Set Him Afire, David Rothenberg Not Only Survives but Smiles (June 9, 1986)

On March 3, 1983, 6-year-old David Rothenberg was sleeping in a motel room near Disneyland in Southern California when his father, Charles, then 42, doused the room with three gallons of kerosene, lit a match and fled. Seconds later the room exploded into flames. David's screams could be heard as his father sped away in a car. An eyewitness called police, and within minutes David was rushed to the burn unit of the University of California Irvine Medical Center. With severe burns over 90 percent of his body, David was given 24 hours to live.

Charles Rothenberg returned to the scene of the fire in time to see the ambulance carrying his son to Irvine. From the hospital lobby he wired his ex-wife, Marie Rothenberg, in New York. The message read: "By the time you get this telegram, I will have terminated my existence. David has been in a very bad accident."

Charles Rothenberg was arrested in San Francisco six days later. He was eventually convicted of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to 13 years in Soledad Prison. He will be eligible for parole in December 1990.

David Rothenberg, disfigured for life, is now a fourth grader at a California Christian school. A book about his life titled David, co-authored by his mother, has just been published, and an NBC-TV movie is planned. David and his mother now live in Orange County, Calif. where she works as an administrative assistant at a manufacturing company. Marie Rothenberg talked with correspondent Mary A. Fischer about the tragic event and her son's heroic struggle to survive.

The day Charles came to pick up David was particularly strange. Charles acted jittery and was in a rush. He said he was taking David to a resort in the Catskills. I always felt if I let Charles have David whenever he wanted, kidnapping would be out of the question. So I always said yes. And to be honest, I was relieved that Charles was taking David for a week so I could have some time to myself. David ran out of the house so happy to see his father. That was the last time I saw David the way he used to be.

But I had a feeling something was wrong. I tried calling Charles's apartment. When I got no answer for several days, I tried Luchow's restaurant in New York where he worked as a waiter. The manager told me he had fired Charles and was looking for him too. They caught him stealing, and he had vandalized the restaurant. I was getting more upset each day, wondering if David was all right. Then my boyfriend at the time remembered that the Catskills were still closed for the winter.

I went to Charles's apartment thinking maybe David was locked inside. The landlord let me in, and a neighbor said she used to hear Charles scream and yell at David all the time. When he cried out for me, Charles would tell him to shut up. The neighbor said she found pictures of David ripped to shreds in the garbage can.

I called the police, and detectives were put on the case right away. I had a hunch he was in California, maybe near Disneyland, since David always wanted to go there. When I went to work the next morning I got a telephone call from Western Union. The operator reading Charles's message started to cry. I had no idea how bad the "accident" was. My boss had learned the details but he didn't want to tell me for fear I wouldn't make it to California in one piece When I saw my boss cry I screamed "My baby's going to die." My boss paid for two airline tickets and my boyfriend and I took the first plane out I didn't think I'd make it in time to see David alive. That was my main goal: to see him once more before he died.

When I went into the hospital room, I didn't think it was David because he was so badly swollen. He was three times his normal size; his head was like a huge balloon. I thought it was a teenager in the bed. He was bandaged from head to toe and smeared all over with creams. His eyes were so badly burned they popped out of his head. His fingers were black and bloody, and his lips were gone. He was conscious but couldn't see or talk.

I had never seen anybody suffering to that extent. I felt that he should die. I couldn't imagine a human body being able to repair itself from so critical a condition. I couldn't imagine him living. I felt that the quicker he went, the faster he would be in heaven. "Let him die," I thought. "Leave him in peace." Charles had done it because he didn't want me to have David. He would have rather seen his son dead than have him returned to me.

To take the burned tissue off, the doctors put David in a whirlpool containing a bleach solution and brushed off the bad skin. In the beginning they used pigskin and cadaver skin to cover him temporarily by stapling it to him. When he was surgically ready for real skin, the doctors took the top layer of skin from parts of his body not burned and laid it on him in mesh graphs. Later that would grow together. It had to be his own skin because the body won't accept foreign skin.

David guessed it was his father who had done this. He asked why, and I told him his Daddy was very sick. I concentrated on making David feel loved and secure, and I insisted on being with him all the time.

I had met Charles when I was 20 and was attracted to him deeply. I had grown up in a troubled home. My mother was an alcoholic and would sometimes get physically abusive to my sisters and me. She hospitalized me once with a dislocated hip.

I felt for Charles because we both came from broken homes. I thought we'd both work hard to build what we had never had in our early years. But that backfired.

From Day One, our marriage was a disaster. He started abusing me and going out with other girls almost immediately. During my pregnancy he flirted with other girls. When David was born, Charles became obsessed with him. I no longer mattered. I was just the maid and had better do what he said or else. One night when David was crying, Charles pushed me against the wall and pulled the front of my nightgown off. He got me to the floor and kicked me and said if I ever made his baby cry again he'd kill me I was afraid to leave him until he finally got arrested for forgery and was put in jail That's when I divorced him in December 1978

It wasn't until three months after the fire that David was out of the woods. But then two months later he almost died. He was to go in for surgery to put skin on top of his head. David didn't want this operation because he felt if his head healed on its own there'd be a possibility he'd have hair again. He went into the operating room very upset. When I came to see him, I learned he might not be normal again. His brain had swelled with fluid. He was in a coma and was having convulsions. He could not see or speak. It was another miracle that he survived this.

Nine months after the incident, David was released from the hospital. A wheelchair was brought to him, but he refused to use it. He said he didn't want anyone to think he was a baby. He went back to his old school in Brooklyn and the kids cheered him like he was their hero. Out here where we decided to resettle, the children reacted to him beautifully. His new classmates had been praying for him.

From the beginning I tried to instill faith in God in him, and I think this is what has helped both of us through. To survive all this I knew I had to have faith in a higher force. I told David that he was loved and his suffering was not in vain. There was a good reason for his living, I told him, and it was to show people how to accept each other for what they had on the inside.

When we go out in the world there are a lot of people who are very cruel to him. People will say, "Oh, my God, did you see that?" or "What an ugly kid." David doesn't care. It's hard to believe, but he has never once felt sorry for himself. He says, "Mom, God gave me three chances to live. The first one was in your belly. The second was when I was saved and the third will be up in Heaven. And I have to make these the best I can." This child has more character and strength than I ever will. I admire and respect him more than any other human being.

Although he shows absolutely no sign of emotional problems, I make sure he has good psychiatric care because you never know what could be brewing inside. I've stopped his physical therapy because he's such an active child on his own. He has trouble buttoning his shirts and tying his shoe laces, but that's about it. He's like everybody else except that he looks different. I don't think about the incident when I'm around David. I don't really notice his scars.

When he's been away for a while or I see old pictures of him, that's when I get sad and depressed. But I tell myself I have actually been lucky. Because I have been blessed with a son like David.

March 24, 1983: David opens his eyes for the first time

April 8, 1983: Little David starts to speak again. He also starts to ask for his father. Up until that point, David had not been informed that it was his father who set him on fire. He held out his arms and said: "Mommy, I hurt myself."About 2 months later, his mother finally tells him. David was absolutely heart broken. He did not understand why his father would do that to him. His mother reassured him that his father did love him, but that he was very ill. David stated that he never wanted to see him again.

June 8th, 1983: David arrives in Boston sporting a baseball cap given to him by Reggie Jackson

June 10, 1983: David arrives at Boston's Shriner Burn Institute

June 19, 1983: David receives a birthday card from President Ronald Reagan

July 30, 1983: Charles David Rothenberg is sentenced to 13 years for setting his son on fire in a Buena Vista motel room. As the verdict was given the Judge James R Franks said: that’s not enough time for what you did because of a quirk in the law, 13 years is the maximum I can give you. But that is far too low, in my opinion, for what you did." Rothenberg, 43, cried as he asked for his son’s forgiveness. In a separate interview, Charles said that he "should have got more" than the 13 years in prison, and that he was willing to "go to the highest level in order to see" his son again. He also stated that he loved his son very much, and that he is not a sick person. Really Charles? If that is not sick tell us what is....David’s mother, Marie, had traveled from Boston to be in court that day.

October 1988: The movie "David" starring Bernadette Peters debuts

January 24, 1990: Charles Rothenberg is paroled after 6 1/2 years. He was quietly released and moved to a secret location a little past midnight in order to avoid the media. In October 1990, Charles violated parole and was sent back to prison for 8 months.

this is Charles in a 1994 photo at his apartment after his release

Here is the article about his violation of parole:

Parole Violation Puts Rothenberg Back in Prison

October 19, 1990|TONY MARCANO | TIMES STAFF WRITER

Charles Rothenberg, the man who set fire to his son in a Buena Park motel room seven years ago, was sent back to prison for eight months Thursday after a state panel ruled that he violated his parole last month.
Rothenberg was arrested in Oakland after he eluded parole agents at a doughnut shop and disappeared for four hours. The Board of Prison Terms ruled Thursday that his disappearance was a violation of his parole and ordered him to serve the additional time in San Quentin Prison, where he has been held since his arrest.
The eight-month parole revocation will be retroactive to Rothenberg's Sept. 10 arrest, a Board of Prison Terms spokesman said.
In a letter to The Times last month, Rothenberg insisted that his four-hour absence was not a violation of his parole because he was at a job interview at the time.
"I've committed no crime," Rothenberg wrote. "I did not elude anyone. I followed instructions, and I will fight this violation with every breath I've got."
Rothenberg has also contended that corrections officials never specified that he had to be under constant visual surveillance, but rather that the terms of his parole called for round-the-clock "supervision" by parole agents.
Tipton C. Kindel, a spokesman for the state Corrections Department, said Rothenberg violated his parole when he lied to his parole agents about his whereabouts. The terms of Rothenberg's parole require him to "cooperate" with his parole agents at all times, Kindel said.
Kindel said Rothenberg slipped away from his parole agents after arriving at a job interview he claimed he had set up himself. When Rothenberg found the business closed, his parole agents allowed him to wait at a doughnut shop, Kindel said.
When Rothenberg failed to emerge after about 15 to 20 minutes, agents discovered that he had left the shop through a rear or side door. Rothenberg then called one of the agents and claimed that he was at a different job interview, authorities said. The agent told him to stay put but did not find Rothenberg when he arrived 10 minutes later.
Agents found him at yet another job interview a short time later, and placed him under arrest.
Rothenberg, 50, was freed on three years' parole on Jan. 24 after serving six years and five months of a maximum 13-year sentence for attempting to murder his son, David, now 14, in a March, 1983, motel fire. The blaze left David permanently scarred from third-degree burns over 90% of his body.
Times wire services contributed to this report.

June 2001: Charles is arrested for possession of 44 rounds of ammunition and handgun possession.

April 2005: He is sentenced to 8 months for weapons possession.

2007: He is re sentenced under the three strikes you're out to 25 years in prison for weapons charges (at age66)

Extra Tidbits

David now goes by the name Dave Dave and lives in Provo, Utah
He appeared on Larry King Live in 2009 speaking on the death of Michael Jackson, he said that Michael Jackson was like a father to him
At age 34 he is an aspiring singer
It is rumored that he and his mother are no longer on good terms

David (1988) movie

True Story that inspired the movie "David" 1988

Photos of David Rothenberg, Mom, Marie Rothenberg (some photos courtesy of ocregister.com)

Dave Rothenberg, David Rothenberg Burn Victim, Charles Rothenberg(photos courtesy of (ocregister.com)

Three Years After His Father Set Him Afire, David Rothenberg Not Only Survives but Smiles (June 9, 1986)

Parole Violation Puts Rothenberg Back in Prison