CHICORA — A potential key witness has emerged in the case of a Saxonburg man accused of dousing his former girlfriend's 7-year-old son with nail polish remover then recording the boy after he was set on fire, authorities said.

The witness, a teenage boy, was present May 25 when 36-year-old Edward Myers Jr., with the help of his own two sons, attacked the victim, according to Saxonburg police Chief Joe Beachem.

“As part of our ongoing investigation we found a last-minute witness who has information about this case,” Beachem told the Butler Eagle this morning.

The sudden disclosure of prospective new evidence delayed Myers' preliminary hearing Tuesday before District Judge Lewis Stoughton in Chicora.

“We have a third-party witness that we need to interview,” prosecutor Russ Karl, a Butler County assistant district attorney, told Stoughton in requesting the delay.

The judge approved the request and continued Myers' hearing until Aug. 13.

Myers, who remains in the county prison on $250,000 bail, is charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment, and possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia.

According to court documents, Myers, a single father, had been supervising the 7-year-old boy as well as his own two sons, ages 15 and 11, when the alleged assault occurred at his mobile home on Carol Drive.

Myers and his sons allegedly shot airsoft and pellet guns at the 7-year-old's forehead. Myers later poured nail polish remover over him, police said.

The boy told investigators that his shirt was then intentionally lit on fire by either Myers or the defendant's older son.

The 15-year-old also faces juvenile charges in the alleged torture attack.

The victim suffered third-degree burns on his face and chest, covering about 10 percent of his body, documents said. He also had welts on his forehead.

Police allege Myers did not seek medical help for the boy.

The boy, according to Beachem, suffered in pain for three to six hours until his mother, Laure Halliwell of Saxonburg, returned home, saw the injuries and took him to the hospital.

Following Tuesday's court proceedings, Karl said he only learned of the potential new witness that same day from Saxonburg police.

He would not comment about the witness or the case against Myers.

Beachem said he spoke briefly to the witness for the first time on Monday at the boy's home. The teen's parents also were there.

He would not identify the boy, who is 15 and lives just outside Saxonburg.

Asked if the boy was in Myers' trailer and saw the attack, Beachem replied, “That's the indication we got.”

He would not elaborate on what the child told investigators but described the boy's account as “credible” and “clear.”

Outside the court on Tuesday, Myers' attorney, Jerry Cassady, said he welcomed news of a possible independent witness.

“I don't know who this young man is,” Cassady said, “but we do believe that he was a witness to something.”

He said that he, too, is looking forward to interviewing the prospective witness.

Cassady also defended his client and cautioned the public against a rush to judgment in the case.

“My client is a good guy. Everyone who knows him can't believe that he would do anything like that,” Cassady said. “It seems like the media has already convicted him.”

Meanwhile, Myers' 15-year-old son was to appear this afternoon in county juvenile court for a pre-adjudication conference on felony and other charges in the May attack.

During this type of hearing, which is similar to a formal arraignment in adult court, a juvenile only admits to or denies the charges.

An adjudication hearing, the equivalent of a trial in criminal court, will be conducted if the boy challenges the case.

Additionally, the boy this afternoon faces an adjudication hearing on unrelated misdemeanor charges for allegedly assaulting Laure Halliwell after the May 25 incident.

The 15-year-old is in the Keystone Adolescent Center in Greenville, Mercer County. This is not the first stint for him at that facility.

The boy in 2012 was sent there for behavioral problems in and out of school, authorities said.

“(He) has had a lot of issues at school,” Myers told District Judge Sue Haggerty of Saxonburg on Tuesday from jail during a video hearing for a landlord-tenant complaint against him.

The hearing was held after Edward Gulick, who owns the mobile home park where Myers lives, sent Myers an eviction notice.

Gulick said the notice followed several incidents at the trailer park between March and April involving Myers' older son.

The boy allegedly vandalized one trailer and threw snowballs at another trailer where an elderly woman lives.

Myers denied his son was involved in the vandalism that left the one trailer with damages of $1,000, including broken windows and smashed walls.

But the boy has had other problems such as skipping school, drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, authorities said.

During Tuesday's proceedings in her courtroom, Haggerty reviewed with Myers his case file full of truancy citations.

Myers in the past two years has been cited eight times in connection with both of his sons' truancy.

Carol Myers of Saxonburg, the boys' grandmother, attended the hearing. She acknowledged that the 15-year-old has “been out of control since his mother passed away.”

Her grandsons' mother, Jennifer Sorg, 31, died Aug. 15, 2011, in a three-vehicle crash in Adams Township.

Myers' younger son suffered serious injuries in the same wreck but has since recovered.

“The boys have been through a lot,” Carol Myers told Haggerty. She said the older boy was constantly at his mother's grave site following her death.

In the wake of the family's seeming dysfunction since Sorg's death, Haggerty has talked to Butler County Children and Youth Services and other social service agencies to get them counseling and other help.

“You have helped our family very much,” Carol Myers told Haggerty, while trying to hold back tears.