Dad charged with assaulting 2-month-old daughter; baby has permanent neurological damage (Lehigh County, Pennsylania)

It appears that dad EDUARDO MAHONES had been babysitting for just a short time when he assaulted his 2-month-old daughter for crying. Yet another example why volatile, young male caretakers are a bad idea....

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/allentown/index.ssf/2015/02/baby_has_permanent_neurologica.html

Baby has permanent neurological damage after alleged shaking by father, prosecutor says

By Sarah Cassi | lehighvalleylive.com on February 27, 2015 at 11:27 AM, updated February 27, 2015 at 12:12 PM

Allentown police say a city man seriously injured his baby daughter after violently shaking her. #A 2-month-old girl has permanent neurological damage, the extent of which won't be known for some time, after allegedly being shaken by her father, prosecutors said Friday.

Lehigh County Deputy District Attorney Matt Falk revealed the girl's diagnosis at the preliminary hearing for her father, Eduardo Mahones.

Mahones, 23, waived his hearing on charges of aggravated assault of a child, child endangerment and simple assault. The charges now go to Lehigh County Court, where Mahones faces trial. #Mahones is in Lehigh County Jail in lieu of $40,000 bail and defense attorney Gavin Holihan asked a reduction in bail.

Mahones arrived in Pennsylvania 10 months ago from Puerto Rico, where he grew up. In Puerto Rico, he was charged in May with possession of a dangerous drug, but Lehigh County Pretrial Services does not know the resolution to that case.

District Judge Michael Faulkner kept bail the same.

Allentown police said Mahones violently shook the baby until she was unconscious, causing multiple hemorrhages.

Allentown police say the girl was treated for severe head injuries at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Salisbury Township and a child abuse investigation began Jan. 26.

In an interview with police, Mahones told officers that on the evening of Jan. 26 his wife went to the store and left the baby in his care. Mahones said the baby was crying and would not stop, and that he picked up the baby and shook her three or four times until she was unconscious, police said.

Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen, a child abuse expert, said the child suffered multiple subdural hemorrhages, and the injuries were consistent with being violently shaken, records say.

Dad with restraining order against him kills 5-year-old daughter (San Juan, Puerto Rico)

The killer dad is identified as MANUEL PIMENTEL

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10903617

Man kills daughter, 5, in Puerto Rico; shoots self

9:37 AM Friday Jul 26, 2013

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) Police in Puerto Rico say a man killed his 5-year-old daughter and then committed suicide in what they described as a domestic violence case.

Authorities identified the man as Manuel Pimentel and said his ex-girlfriend had requested a restraining order against him. 

They said Pimentel shot the girl shortly after telling his ex-girlfriend about his plans.

The killing occurred Thursday in the San Juan working class neighborhood of Santurce.

Convicted child porn dad accused of secretly filming teen daughter, her boyfriend (San Juan, Puerto Rico)

Dad is identified as TROY FITZGERALD NIEBLING. No mention here of what happened to the mother of this girl, or where she was when sicko daddy was filming through the daughter's bedroom window.

This lame @$$ had been convicted of child porn before. Why was he allowed around kids at all?

http://www.islandsweekly.com/news/211825031.html

Father faces felonies for secretly filming 'intimate acts' of teen daughter and boyfriend

June 17, 2013 · 8:49 AM

A San Juan Island man accused of secretly taking photographs and video footage of his teenage daughter and her boyfriend having sex, and of storing those images on his computer, will stand trial on a pair of sex-related felonies in mid-August.

On May 15, Troy Fitzgerald Niebling, 48, pleaded not guilty in San Juan County Superior Court to one count of voyeurism, a Class C felony, and to one count of first-degree possession of sexually explicit depictions of a minor, a Class B felony. He was released under court orders pending trial, which is slated to begin Aug. 12.

According to court documents, the daughter, now in her early 20's, notified local authorities in December about sexually explicit images of her and a boyfriend taken without their consent and that were stored on her father's computer. She reportedly confronted him about the images the month before.

Detectives were supplied with copies of the images that had been retrieved by a sibling and a friend from a faulty hard-drive the man had reportedly replaced several months earlier.

Authorities claim that the photos and video were taken by Niebling in late spring of 2009, through a window of the girl's bedroom at their Sutton Road home. She was 17 at the time. The images reportedly were still on the hard drive as of September of 2012.

According to court records, Niebling was convicted in Minnesota in 1992 of possession of child pornography. He would face maximum penalties of 10 years in prison, a $20,000 fine, or both, if convicted of the Class B felony; five years in prison, a $10,000 fine, or both, in convicted of the lesser offense.

Dad with history of domestic violence murders 4-year-old daughter (San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico)

Once again, we see what happens when fathers with a history of domestic violence gain access to the kids. Mom had apparently left this man because of his abuse, yet dad PEDRO MONTANEZ MONTANEZ still had access to their 4-year-old daughter. Well, he just had to make Mom suffer, didn't he? So he strung up this poor baby from a tree and killed her. When will we learn that batterers and violent criminals are not safe around kids? So they contributed some DNA. So what?

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/07/10/3005547/police-puerto-rico-man-hangs-daughter.html#ixzz1RkMMcKGg

Police: Puerto Rico man hangs daughter, self
The Associated Press

Puerto Rico police say a 30-year-old man apparently hanged his 4-year-old daughter from a backyard tree and then used another noose to kill himself.

Police spokesman Anibal Cortes said a neighbor discovered the bodies hanging from the same tree Sunday morning in the eastern mountain town of San Lorenzo.

Cortez says Pedro Montanez Montanez was being investigated for domestic violence allegations reported two weeks ago by his estranged wife, the mother of the young girl.

Investigators say no further details were immediately available, citing an ongoing probe.

Immigrant Dads--who once in the U.S. or Canada, get custody--only to abuse the kids

Just recently, I was in a discussion with some folks about fathers in the U.S. or Canada--typically immigrants--who manage to strip child custody from impoverished mothers still living in so-called "developing" countries (usually countries like Mexico or other countries in the Carribean basin). So I decided to tally up how many articles we have collected here at Dastardly that fall into this general category.

As you will see, sometimes the father's custody is phrased as the mother "willingly" giving the child to the father so the child can have a better life. But really, what kind of choice is that? These mothers have no resources to feed their kids, no way to immigrate themselves, no way to receive financial support. In short no way to better their lives or the lives of their children, no way to fight back in the legal system.

Here are some examples of kids who came to the U.S or Canada., only to be seriously abused/murdered by the custodial dad and/or the new step:

Charlenni Ferrera - Murdered in Philadelphia, PA by custodial dad and/or step.
Mom from Puerto Rico via the Dominican Republic: http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2010/02/dhs-not-at-fault-for-abuse-death-of-10.html> http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2009/11/charlennis-tragic-journey-actually.html> >

Manuel Gonzalez - Miami, Florida father who had sexually abused his daughter, and then stabbed her and her infant son, killing the son. What is often not reported in this case is that he was custodial--the girl's mother is from Guatamala: http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2010/05/estranged-wife-of-stabbing-suspect.html

Naticia Laurent-Murdered by custodial dad and/or step in Beauford, South Carolina.
Mother in Haiti:
http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2010/05/stepmom-accused-of-homicide-wants-to.html>>

Unnamed girl sexually abused, neglected by custodial father in Miami, Florida. Mother in Dominican Republic:
http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2010/04/custodial-dad-molests-teen-daughter-dcf.html>

Randall Dooley, murdered by custodial dad/step in Toronto, Canada.
Mom in Jamaica:
http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2009/09/custodial-dad-stepmother-want-new-trial.html>

And finally dad Melvin Ortiz in Ponciana, Florida. He and/or the step murdered his son while he was visiting from Puerto Rico. Mom still had custody back in Puerto Rico at the time: http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2009/07/custodial-dad-charged-with-killing-5.html

Dad of baby left with cabdriver in 2008 is charged (Queens, New York)

Dad CARLOS CARDENAS arranged for the "abandonment" of his then 6-month-old daughter 2 years ago. A cute little scam involving a New York cab which made the cab driver sound like a big hero--until New York's Finest did a little pavement pounding. Now Daddy has been arrested on statutory rape charges involving the baby's mother, who was only 14 at the time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/nyregion/09rape.html

Father of a Baby Left With a Cabdriver in 2008 Is Charged
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR
Published: April 8, 2010

The father of a baby girl who was abandoned two years ago and taken to a Queens firehouse by a livery-cab driver was arrested on Thursday and charged with the statutory rape of the baby’s mother, who was 14 at the time, the police said.

The baby, Daniella, then 6 months old, was at the center of a scheme that unfolded in February 2008 and resulted in the arrest of the livery driver, Klever Sailema.

The cabdriver initially told the authorities that the baby had been abandoned in the back of his cab by the father, who left the cab to make a phone call and never returned.

Mr. Sailema was initially declared a hero after taking the girl to a firehouse in Corona.

But the police soon discovered that his story was a lie, and that Mr. Sailema had colluded with the girl’s father, Carlos Cardenas, 29, to abandon her.

Daniella’s mother walked out on Mr. Cardenas a week earlier and he was unable to care for the child anymore, Mr. Sailema has said.

Mr. Sailema was charged with falsely reporting an incident and criminal facilitation, but the case was eventually dismissed.

The authorities could not find Mr. Cardenas but were interested in locating him because the girl’s mother was only 14, and thus legally unable to consent to sex.

After the incident involving the cabdriver, the mother and Daniella were taken into the care of social services officials.

As it turns out, Mr. Cardenas had fled New York, heading first to Puerto Rico and then somewhere outside the country, the police said.

Recently, however, the authorities were told that he had resurfaced in New York, where he was arrested.

No charges were ever brought against the girl’s mother, whose name was not released.

DHS not at "fault" for abuse death of 10-year-old girl? Are you kidding me? (Philadelphia, Pennsylania)

DHS's handling of this case was found to be"thorough" by an "independent review"?

What drugs are you people on anyway?

This child had been in the system since 2006, and nobody associated with DHS could ever find any abuse. Two school nurse kept trying to get this child help, but incompetent caseworkers and doctors couldn't "prove" abuse--or so we're told. (The last doctor to "see" her, just one month before her death, didn't even give her a full exam. So he completely missed her fractured hip and the 7-inch gash on her head hidden under a hair weave.) Given how extensive this child's injuries were--investigators after her death called the incident "one of the worst cases of child abuse they had ever seen"--this is absolutely unbelievable. Just breathtaking incompetence and arrogance.

The little girl finally died last fall from an infection from her untreated broken ribs. The stepmother has been charged with murder, the custodial father DOMINGO FERREIRA apparently commited suicide is jail.

Note that Daddy and the stepmonster tried to blame the injuries that were detected on the non-custodial mother, even though she lived in Puerto Rico! And apparently DHS was so caught up in the "blame the mother" mentality that they bought this line of bull, and they never questioned how illogical this accusation really was. Puerto Rico is 1500 miles from Philadelphia! How was this even humanly possible? In fact, they NEVER CONTACTED THE MOTHER OR ANY FAMILY MEMBERS IN PUERTO RICO regarding this bizarre account.

DHS did a "thorough" investigation? Please stop insulting our intelligence.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/84762207.html

Panel exonerates DHS in child-abuse death
By John Sullivan

Inquirer Staff Writer

A panel of experts who reviewed the abuse death of 10-year-old Charlenni Ferreira found no fault with the city Department of Human Services' handling of her case, but said city agencies responsible for children needed to work together to prevent deaths.

Charlenni, a fifth grader at Feltonville Intermediate School, died in October in what investigators called one of the worst cases of child abuse they'd ever seen.

She first came to the agency's attention in 2006 after a school nurse called the agency's child-abuse hotline, saying Charlenni had gashes on her hands, a split lip, and other injuries.

But the agency said that after investigating, monitoring the family, and twice taking Charlenni to doctors who specialize in abuse cases, it could not prove abuse and had no legal ground to keep the case open. During the investigation the Ferreiras complained that DHS was harassing the family.

The case was closed in March 2007; two years later, the girl was dead.

Police charged Charlenni's stepmother, Margarita Garabito, 43, of Feltonville, with murder. Her father, Domingo Ferreira, was also charged, but he committed suicide in jail shortly after his arrest.

Yesterday's report is the first independent review of the department's handling of the case.

While the report challenged the department to find ways to work better with schools and health professionals, it called DHS's handling of the case "thorough."

The legally mandated public report is limited to Charlenni's history with DHS and makes recommendations to improve the department's handling of cases.

The report further suggested that DHS develop a policy on when and how to gather records from other states, develop a list of approved medical providers to conduct exams of children when abuse is suspected, and develop a formal way to let doctors know when they are seeing a child with a history of alleged abuse.

In the weeks after Charlenni's death, the public was horrified by revelations that for months before she died, a second school nurse had flagged problems with the girl's gait and demanded the family take her to a doctor.

Left to rely on information provided by the girl's stepmother, the doctor ordered some blood tests and never fully examined the child.

If he had, he might have found a seven-inch gash in her head that had been stuffed with gauze and hidden under a hair weave, and a fractured hip that made her limp.

Charlenni died a month after the exam from an infection caused by untreated broken ribs. The infection filled her lungs with fluid and collapsed them, police said.
Charlenni also had injuries indicating that she had been sexually abused. Police said sexual-assault charges are unlikely because DNA tests were inconclusive.

The case rocked DHS officials, who had undertaken three years of changes at the department since a series of high-profile child-abuse deaths in 2006 prompted the firing of the commissioner and other top officials at the department.

At the time, many of the details surrounding child deaths were unavailable to the public. Under Act 33, a state law passed in 2008, all child-abuse deaths must be reviewed by a team of experts and their findings made public.

Philadelphia's review team includes the city's medical examiner, a prosecutor, doctors, social workers, and DHS officials. The team makes findings about how DHS handled the case but does not examine the actions of other entities.

The agency is not required to follow the team's recommendations, but DHS Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose said yesterday that she would carry them out unless they are unreasonable or unrealistic. In those cases, she said, she would go back to the panel and work out an agreeable alternative.

"There is a reason for these reviews and recommendations, and we need to act on them," she said.

She said she had already acted on several recommendations by asking all regional child-welfare offices to create relationships with local school principals.

The report credited the agency for its thorough investigation of the case and for providing intensive services to the family, even though the initial abuse report could not be substantiated.

It further credited DHS with extending services until Charlenni could be seen by a pediatrician specializing in child abuse.

The family told investigators and doctors that Charlenni's biological mother in Puerto Rico had abused the child before she moved her in 2006, an allegation her mother denied after the girl's death.

But DHS never called anyone in Puerto Rico to try to confirm the family's account, the report noted.

Although the report does not name the School District of Philadelphia, it noted that DHS had received reports of Charlenni's suspected abuse in 2006 and 2007, but not in 2008 or 2009 when Charlenni had multiple injuries, including scratches to her face, a "cauliflower ear," and scalp lacerations. The child also had a noticeable change in her gait, the result of a fractured hip.

Ambrose said the agency was eager to train schools and health professionals to recognize when a child is being abused, and to emphasize that they are required under the law to report it.

"We've embraced the process, and it's made us a better agency," she said.

Charlenni's "tragic" journey--actually a story about colonialism and a desperate mother with few choices (San Juan, Puerto Rico)

This story is not just about the murder of a little girl by her custodial father, DOMINGO FERREIRA, though it's certainly about that too. It's also about a destitute, illiterate (but loving) mother in Puerto Rico (originally from the Dominican Republic) who hoped that her daughter would have a better life with her father in the United States. A chance for an education and the American Dream and all that.

But we now know that the girl was viciously abused by her father and his live-in girlfriend (reports started just MONTHS after the little girl arrived) and continued over three years till she died at age 10--one of the worst cases of child abuse ever seen by the Philadelphia police. Some new things I have observed here, which are very typical of child abusers:

1) Dad cut off telephone contact between the daughter and her mother

2) Dad was masterful at coaching and intimidating the daughter into blaming the mother (who lived out of the country!) for signs of abuse, and saying nothing about what was going on at home. He was also an expert at concocting excuses about mysterious "illnesses" to explain away the bruises and other injuries for neighbors, relatives, and other experts who (with a few notable exceptions) did nothing to intervene.

Now the mother herself is dying from untreated cancer--no one could afford to pay for the necessary surgery.

This is not a "tragedy"--it's an outrage that impoverished and exploited mothers from poor countries--with no education, no health care, no way out of poverty--have so very few choices when it comes to saving themselves or their children. It's essentially the story of how an abusive father can exploit colonial oppression to further his own agenda.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/daily/20091108_Charlenni_s_tragic_journey.html?viewAll=y

Posted on Sun, Nov. 8, 2009

Charlenni's tragic journey
By James Osborne, Troy Graham, and Mark Fazlollah

Inquirer Staff Writers

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Seven-year-old Charlenni Ferreira was like many of the children in Buen Consejo, a worn hillside barrio of boxy concrete homes by the city's edge.

Money was tight for her mother - a maid raising a son and daughter alone - but the family, while poor, was not destitute. The three shared a two-bedroom apartment, watched satellite TV, and had plenty of food on the table.

Support came, in part, from Charlenni's father. Domingo Ferreira had moved from San Juan to Philadelphia and was sending them a portion of his earnings as a limousine driver.

Charlenni spoke lovingly of him, though he had left when she was a toddler.

She also talked wistfully of someday living in the United States. Most of the kids in Buen Consejo did.

"The dream of going to America is so strong," said Neyda Fuster, the social worker at Charlenni's elementary school. "They all want to go."

Charlenni got her wish after visiting her father in the summer of 2006. He called her mother, Rosalinda Almeida Dominguez, and asked to keep his daughter, then 7, in Philadelphia.

"She loved her father so much," Rosalinda recalled last week. "So I let her go."

The dream would be the death of Charlenni.

Within a few months, a nurse at her new school in the Feltonville section made the first of two complaints to the city's Department of Human Services that the child bore the marks of abuse.

In three years, at age 10, Charlenni was dead in what Philadelphia police called one of the worst cases of child abuse they had seen.

On Oct. 23, Domingo and his live-in girlfriend, Margarita Garabito, were charged with murder. Two days later, he hanged himself in his jail cell.

He once told caseworkers that he had taken in his child because her mother could not care for her. Charlenni herself, in explaining signs of abuse to a doctor in 2007, cast blame on her mother.

In numerous interviews last week in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, however, relatives, friends, and teachers said Charlenni had been happy on the island, and safe.

"She was a normal kid. She was always out playing," said Brenda Ires Rivera, who lived down the street in Buen Consejo.

"The only problem was in that house in Philadelphia. . . . When she left, we never thought anything like this would happen."

Village burial
Charlenni Ferreira was buried last Sunday, two days after her 11th birthday, in her mother's hometown of Las Galeras, a seaside village in the Dominican Republic.

In the cemetery at the threshold to the jungle, cracked pieces of stone littered the ground. The names of the deceased, painted by hand, were faded from years in the Caribbean sun.

Early last week, fresh cement and a single bouquet marked Charlenni's resting place. But her name had yet to be added to the family tomb.

In life, the child had never set foot in Las Galeras. Nor had she met the relatives who for generations have farmed yucca and plantains in the mountains of the Samana Peninsula on the north coast.

Her mother, like many young Dominicans before her, left the village in her early 20s, setting off in a small boat bound for Puerto Rico's western shore - a one-day trip across open ocean that, in bad weather, is perilous.

Undocumented, Rosalinda Dominguez found work as a maid for wealthy families outside San Juan. Within a year, she was pregnant with a son, Julio Angel, now 18. The father left the barrio, said Rivera, the neighbor.

A few years later, Rosalinda met Domingo, also a Dominican, who had found a job in San Juan laying floors. He had spent more than a year working in the United States, where his sister lived.
He had a teenage daughter, Glenny, and around 1996 they all began living together in Buen Consejo - translated, "Good Counsel" - a Dominican enclave where the crowing of fighting cocks echoes amid the brightly colored homes.

The family grew close to neighbors, who also worked across the city as maids, waiters, and laborers.

When Rosalinda "was pregnant with Charlenni, Domingo would go with her on her cleaning jobs," said Lucresia Brito, a neighborhood friend. "He would do everything."

Rosalinda's father, Antonio Almeida, who lives in San Juan, described Domingo as "a good man, a good father. The years they lived together were good." Whenever he visited, "everything was fine."

Charlenni, the couple's only child, was born in 1998.

Within a couple of years, Domingo returned to the United States, where he found work as a limo driver in Philadelphia. Married at 17, Glenny also moved to the United States, ultimately to Vineland, N.J.

Rosalinda was left alone to raise Charlenni and Julio Angel. Although Domingo sent money monthly, Rosalinda struggled at times to pay the bills, her father said.

"She would work two days some weeks, sometimes three. It was never steady," he said. "She was very poor, living in a room in a house filled with people."

The place was typical of Buen Consejo - a two-story house broken up into apartments - and so were the family's difficulties.

Charlenni had plenty of playmates. She attended a Head Start program at a nearby community center and first grade at Dr. Luis Pereira Leal Elementary down the street. Teachers called her popular and "sweet," but noted she lagged academically.

"Her mother didn't know how to read and write, so she didn't have a lot of help at home," said Fuster, the social worker.

Charlenni's half-brother, big and strong for his age, kept a close eye on her. "He protected the girl," said first-grade teacher Nehemias Garcia.

In class, he said, Charlenni often spoke of her father. "She had strong feelings about him. She was such a baby. She was really fragile."

A move to Philly
In Philadelphia, Domingo had met Garabito and was living with her and her three children in Feltonville. When Charlenni finished first grade in San Juan, she joined them.

"It was for better schools and a better life," said Rosalinda's brother, Elvin Almeida, who lives in Rhode Island.

Police have not said when they believe the abuse of Charlenni began, but a nurse at Clara Barton Elementary made the first of two complaints to DHS in October 2006, just months after the child arrived in Philadelphia.

DHS investigated, and Charlenni was seen numerous times by caseworkers, doctors, and counselors. None could prove abuse.

The agency closed the case in 2007. There were no further complaints regarding Charlenni.

Rosalinda rarely spoke to her daughter.

"Rosalinda would call, and [Garabito] would say, 'She's not here,' and hang up," said Fedelina Santos, a friend in San Juan. "She was a good mother, and it was tough on her. She wanted to visit, but she didn't have documents."

Relatives in the United States described Charlenni as increasingly sullen and withdrawn.

"It was as if someone was intervening," said Elvin Almeida. "The girl didn't talk with anyone."

Domingo's sister, Petra Nila "Tata" Ferreira, and her husband, Juan Paulino, also visited every couple of months. They now live in Wilmington.

Charlenni barely spoke to them, said her aunt, who said she did not suspect abuse. She once noticed a red mark on the girl's arm, but, she said, Garabito explained it away as the result of a blood illness.

According to DHS records, Charlenni and Garabito both provided doctors with ready, if sometimes conflicting, reasons for her injuries. Tests did show Charlenni was anemic, bolstering the family's claim that she bruised easily.

"Her room was well-decorated, and she was always well-dressed," Tata said. "How are you going to think she is badly treated?"

A few years ago, Domingo took his girlfriend and Charlenni to Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic and his hometown. Relatives there questioned why Charlenni was so quiet.

Garabito insisted "the girl is mentally bad," Tata said. Charlenni was taken to a local clinic, she added, but nothing was found to be wrong.

Philadelphia police sources have said Garabito, 42, confessed to beating Charlenni; investigators believe she was the chief tormentor.

Domingo, 53, was charged with murder, they said, because he did nothing to stop the abuse.

Domingo, who visited the Dominican Republic for a month twice a year, returned from a trip this fall just three days before Charlenni died, of an infection caused by untreated broken ribs.

She also had a fractured hip and a seven-inch gash on her head, hidden under a wig, as well as sexual-assault injuries.

Tata said she thought her brother hadn't realized his daughter was being beaten.

"He didn't know what he was looking at," she said.

Garabito's attorney, however, could cast blame solely on Domingo.

At a Municipal Court hearing last month, Barbara A. McDermott said his suicide could be interpreted as "an admission of guilt."

In an interview, Domingo's daughter Glenny said he had never abused her - never even liked to raise his voice - and she believes he was innocent.

She suggested he might have been unaware of Charlenni's abuse because he worked long hours, getting behind the limo wheel at dawn, coming home late at night.

Glenny talked to him shortly after he and Garabito were arrested. She said he had told her, "I didn't know I lived with a monster."

Added pain
Earlier this year, Rosalinda felt a pain in her abdomen and went to a doctor.

The diagnosis was cancer.

Living in Puerto Rico illegally, she did not qualify for assistance. Doctors said removing the tumor would cost $18,000, a sum she and her family could not afford.

A few weeks ago, she returned to Las Galeras to wait for the end.

She was so ill that her family did not tell her of Charlenni's death.

She learned of it a week later, when she called to wish her child a happy 11th birthday, said Rosalinda's uncle Carlos Almeida.

"These sorts of things happen all over the world, in this country, in this town," he said. "But when it's someone in your family, it's very sad for everyone."

Each day, Rosalinda's relatives help her to a foldout recliner, under a mango tree in her mother's garden.

As the mountain breeze blows through, they arrange themselves in plastic chairs, taking turns rubbing cream on her arms and fetching her cold drinks.

Sitting in the garden, Rosalinda said Charlenni had "sounded so happy" the last time they had spoken, nine months before her death. At the memory, she slumped over, mumbling.

Her 78-year-old mother, Luisa Dominguez, said the shock had taken a heavy toll.

Rosalinda, she said, hasn't accepted what happened.

"She believes it was all an accident."