As usual, no explanation as to how dad JAMES ANTHONY COLLINS got access to this child, what his rights are (full custody? joint?), how he got them, who gave them to him, whether he had a previous history of violence with this child's mother, or even what happened to this girl's mother.
A custodial mother is nearly always held responsible for "failure" to protect against a violent boyfriend, even if the boyfriend is also beating her or making death threats if she goes to the authorities. However, custodial fathers almost always play the Clueless Daddy card and get off.
http://www.lcsun-news.com/story/news/crime/2016/04/04/couple-charged-lightsaber-child-abuse-case-plead-not-guilty/82632052/
Couple charged in lightsaber child abuse case plead not guilty
Sun-News Reports, . 6:41 p.m. MDT April 4, 2016
LAS CRUCES - A father and his girlfriend pleaded not guilty to child abuse charges on Monday in 3rd Judicial District Court. The girlfriend allegedly hit the man's 12-year-old daughter with a toy lightsaber.
James Anthony Collins, 50, and his girlfriend, Julia Torres, 25, were indicted March 17 and charged with two counts of child abuse not resulting in death or great bodily harm, a third-degree felony, online court records show.
Collins and Torres appeared before District Judge Mary W. Rosner for arraignment on Monday. They both pleaded not guilty to the two charges.
Torres allegedly struck Collins’ daughter with the handle of a toy lightsaber, according to the 3rd Judicial District Attorney's Office.
The girl said she told Collins about the incident and other allegations of abuse, but reported to authorities he did nothing to stop it. Torres has denied hitting the victim with the toy, the Sun-News previously reported. But she admitted to having anger issues and using a baseball bat to twice break her boyfriend’s arm.
The abuse, which was reported to the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office, is alleged to have occurred between May 2014 and December 2015 in Vado.
Torres was arrested in connection to the charges. She has since been released from the Doña Ana County Detention Center on her own recognizance, online court record show.
On Monday, she was given a $3,000 unsecured bond. Collins, meanwhile, has until Friday to post a $3,000 secured bond. He was not arrested. His attorney argued for an unsecured bond, but the judge did not grant the request.
If convicted as charged, Collins and Torres could face up to three years in prison for each count.
Showing posts with label New Mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Mexico. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Abusive dad used 4-year-old daughter to commit burglaries, tries to escape from police with her in stolen car; what happened to her mother? (Moriarty, New Mexico)
Notice there is no mention of the mother supporting Dad's use of the little girl in his burglaries. There is no mention of the mother protesting the Dad's use of the little girl in his burglaries.
There is no mention of the mother PERIOD.
It's as if she has been completely erased from the life of this child. We don't know if she's dead or alive. We don't know if Dad gained sole custody through the courts. We are told nothing. And now the little girl is being placed with "relatives out of state." So apparently Daddy was custodial.
What happened to Mom?
Dad is identified as JERED MCMEANS.
http://www.mvtelegraph.com/2015/09/10/father-accused-of-fleeing-from-police-child-abuse/
Father accused of fleeing from police, child abuse
by Nicole Maxwell / Mountain View Telegraph | Sep 10, 2015
Aside from the original charges against Jered McMeans, 32, including child abuse, fleeing from police and operating a stolen vehicle; he is also charged with being a fugitive from justice.
McMeans is expected to have a preliminary hearing about both sets of charges at 9 a.m. on Sept. 17 at Moriarty Magistrate Court.
A police chase ended in Moriarty Monday with the arrest of McMeans and the rescue of his 4-year-old daughter on Aug. 31.
The chase started at the TA Travel Stop on Old Route 66 in Moriarty when Moriarty Police Officer Craig Meo was dispatched to do a welfare check of a young girl.
The criminal complaint states that the person who called officers saw that the girl was uneasy with the man who was also yelling and cursing at her.
When law enforcement showed up to the scene, McMeans led officers on a vehicle chase that ended in an open field when Torrance County Sheriff Heath White maneuvered to stop what turned out to be a stolen SUV by hitting it.
The child was in the SUV for the duration of the chase and received minor injuries on her lip and legs.
White said deputies believe McMeans instructed his daughter to break into multiple homes through dog doors and steal from stores from Bernalillo County to Texas.
McMeans has not been formally charged with using his 4-year-old daughter to help with burglaries, however, he has other warrants out against him in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Albuquerque.
McMeans' daughter has been placed with relatives out-of-state according to New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Public Information Officer Henry Varela.
There is no mention of the mother PERIOD.
It's as if she has been completely erased from the life of this child. We don't know if she's dead or alive. We don't know if Dad gained sole custody through the courts. We are told nothing. And now the little girl is being placed with "relatives out of state." So apparently Daddy was custodial.
What happened to Mom?
Dad is identified as JERED MCMEANS.
http://www.mvtelegraph.com/2015/09/10/father-accused-of-fleeing-from-police-child-abuse/
Father accused of fleeing from police, child abuse
by Nicole Maxwell / Mountain View Telegraph | Sep 10, 2015
Aside from the original charges against Jered McMeans, 32, including child abuse, fleeing from police and operating a stolen vehicle; he is also charged with being a fugitive from justice.
McMeans is expected to have a preliminary hearing about both sets of charges at 9 a.m. on Sept. 17 at Moriarty Magistrate Court.
A police chase ended in Moriarty Monday with the arrest of McMeans and the rescue of his 4-year-old daughter on Aug. 31.
The chase started at the TA Travel Stop on Old Route 66 in Moriarty when Moriarty Police Officer Craig Meo was dispatched to do a welfare check of a young girl.
The criminal complaint states that the person who called officers saw that the girl was uneasy with the man who was also yelling and cursing at her.
When law enforcement showed up to the scene, McMeans led officers on a vehicle chase that ended in an open field when Torrance County Sheriff Heath White maneuvered to stop what turned out to be a stolen SUV by hitting it.
The child was in the SUV for the duration of the chase and received minor injuries on her lip and legs.
White said deputies believe McMeans instructed his daughter to break into multiple homes through dog doors and steal from stores from Bernalillo County to Texas.
McMeans has not been formally charged with using his 4-year-old daughter to help with burglaries, however, he has other warrants out against him in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Albuquerque.
McMeans' daughter has been placed with relatives out-of-state according to New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Public Information Officer Henry Varela.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Custodial dad charged with "child abandonment" in death of 15-year-old son (Las Cruces, New Mexico)
Once again, who gave this abusive, neglectful father custody? Typical kid-glove treatment too, even after the kid has died.
Dad is identified as JOE A. TORRES.
http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_28524066/las-cruces-father-charged-sons-2011-death-indicted
Las Cruces father charged in son's 2011 death indicted for child abandonment
By Carlos Andres López
Posted: 07/22/2015 05:35:38 PM MDT LAS CRUCES
A Las Cruces father charged in 2011 with intentional child abuse after he allegedly gave alcohol to his 15-year-old son, who later died, is now facing one count of child abandonment resulting in death, according to a superseding indictment returned July 17.
Joe A. Torres and Heather C. Soto were arrested on July 27, 2011, nearly two weeks after their son, Joey "Baby Joe" Torres Jr., was taken off life support at University Medical Center in El Paso, the Las Cruces Police Department reported.
Torres Jr., a sophomore at Las Cruces High School, was found unconscious in a home on the 1100 block of Gardner Avenue, where he was living with his father and stepmother, on the morning of July 4, 2011, according to previous Sun-News reports. The couple tried to resuscitate Torres Jr. for about half an hour before calling 911, police reported.
Torres Jr. was then rushed to a Las Cruces hospital before being transported to UMC. At the El Paso hospital, the couple initially denied the teen had consumed any alcohol or drugs, the previous reports state.
However, about five hours later at the hospital, the couple admitted to police that Torres Jr. had been drinking beer, wine and brandy with them the previous night and into the early morning, police reported.
Authorities later discovered text messages on Torres Jr.'s cellphone, which "stated he was getting drunk" with Torres and that Soto "had prepared alcoholic beverages for him made of E&J (brandy) and two types of wine," according to Torres' indictment.
Torres Jr. had a blood-alcohol content of 0.115, and medical personnel also found opiates in his system, according to the previous reports. Torres Jr. also had a blood sugar level of 570 — several times higher than normal — and emergency workers gave him a shot of Narcan, a drug that reverses the effect of drug overdoses, according to a police report.
Medical personnel told detectives their inability to determine what Torres Jr. had taken hampered their ability to treat him, police reported.
"(Torres) was questioned for 5 hours before he ultimately told medical personnel and law enforcement that his child had been drinking. The delay in medical care resulted in complications in treatment," the indictment states.
Torres Jr. never regained consciousness, the previous news reports state, and he was taken off life support. He was pronounced dead the morning of July 14, 2011.
According to police, Torres Jr. had moved to Las Cruces to live with his father and stepmother in May 2011. Before that, he lived in Colorado, where he had received therapy for suicidal tendencies, alcohol abuse and overdosing on medication, police reported.
The case against Torres, now 43, has been pending for several years. Online court records indicate a grand jury originally charged him with intentional child abuse resulting in death, a first-degree felony that carries a life sentence. Torres was later charged with child abandonment resulting in death and negligent child abuse resulting in death, which prosecutors dismissed July 17, when a grand jury returned the one-count, superseding indictment.
According to the 3rd Judicial District Attorney's Office, child abandonment resulting in death is a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Torres is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 3 before District Judge Manuel Arrieta in 3rd Judicial District Court in Las Cruces.
On June 19, Soto, now 35, pleaded no contest to one count each of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and selling or giving alcoholic beverages to a minor — both fourth-degree felonies. Her sentencing has been deferred for three years, according to court documents, and she was placed on unsupervised probation.
Dad is identified as JOE A. TORRES.
http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_28524066/las-cruces-father-charged-sons-2011-death-indicted
Las Cruces father charged in son's 2011 death indicted for child abandonment
By Carlos Andres López
Posted: 07/22/2015 05:35:38 PM MDT LAS CRUCES
A Las Cruces father charged in 2011 with intentional child abuse after he allegedly gave alcohol to his 15-year-old son, who later died, is now facing one count of child abandonment resulting in death, according to a superseding indictment returned July 17.
Joe A. Torres and Heather C. Soto were arrested on July 27, 2011, nearly two weeks after their son, Joey "Baby Joe" Torres Jr., was taken off life support at University Medical Center in El Paso, the Las Cruces Police Department reported.
Torres Jr., a sophomore at Las Cruces High School, was found unconscious in a home on the 1100 block of Gardner Avenue, where he was living with his father and stepmother, on the morning of July 4, 2011, according to previous Sun-News reports. The couple tried to resuscitate Torres Jr. for about half an hour before calling 911, police reported.
Torres Jr. was then rushed to a Las Cruces hospital before being transported to UMC. At the El Paso hospital, the couple initially denied the teen had consumed any alcohol or drugs, the previous reports state.
However, about five hours later at the hospital, the couple admitted to police that Torres Jr. had been drinking beer, wine and brandy with them the previous night and into the early morning, police reported.
Authorities later discovered text messages on Torres Jr.'s cellphone, which "stated he was getting drunk" with Torres and that Soto "had prepared alcoholic beverages for him made of E&J (brandy) and two types of wine," according to Torres' indictment.
Torres Jr. had a blood-alcohol content of 0.115, and medical personnel also found opiates in his system, according to the previous reports. Torres Jr. also had a blood sugar level of 570 — several times higher than normal — and emergency workers gave him a shot of Narcan, a drug that reverses the effect of drug overdoses, according to a police report.
Medical personnel told detectives their inability to determine what Torres Jr. had taken hampered their ability to treat him, police reported.
"(Torres) was questioned for 5 hours before he ultimately told medical personnel and law enforcement that his child had been drinking. The delay in medical care resulted in complications in treatment," the indictment states.
Torres Jr. never regained consciousness, the previous news reports state, and he was taken off life support. He was pronounced dead the morning of July 14, 2011.
According to police, Torres Jr. had moved to Las Cruces to live with his father and stepmother in May 2011. Before that, he lived in Colorado, where he had received therapy for suicidal tendencies, alcohol abuse and overdosing on medication, police reported.
The case against Torres, now 43, has been pending for several years. Online court records indicate a grand jury originally charged him with intentional child abuse resulting in death, a first-degree felony that carries a life sentence. Torres was later charged with child abandonment resulting in death and negligent child abuse resulting in death, which prosecutors dismissed July 17, when a grand jury returned the one-count, superseding indictment.
According to the 3rd Judicial District Attorney's Office, child abandonment resulting in death is a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Torres is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 3 before District Judge Manuel Arrieta in 3rd Judicial District Court in Las Cruces.
On June 19, Soto, now 35, pleaded no contest to one count each of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and selling or giving alcoholic beverages to a minor — both fourth-degree felonies. Her sentencing has been deferred for three years, according to court documents, and she was placed on unsupervised probation.
Monday, June 29, 2015
Dad charged in death of 2-month-old son (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Dad is identified as SPENSER PHILLIPS.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Baby-dies-from-brain-injury-father-charged-6351035.php
Baby dies from brain injury, father charged
Published 4:51 am, Friday, June 26, 2015
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The father of an infant who died from what doctors say were nonaccidental injuries has been accused of child abuse.
The Albuquerque Journal reports (http://bit.ly/1TRi5fH ) 25-year-old Spenser Phillips was charged Wednesday with child abuse in connection with the death of his 2-month-old son.
On May 30, the baby was taken to University of New Mexico Hospital in critical condition with a brain bleed.
According to a criminal complaint, a doctor told police the baby had suffered abusive head trauma and nonaccidental injuries.
The child's mother told police Phillips had been caring for the child that day.
In an interview, Phillips told police the child had fallen out of his chair and hit his head.
The child died days later.
Phillips has been booked into the county jail on $50,000 bail.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Baby-dies-from-brain-injury-father-charged-6351035.php
Baby dies from brain injury, father charged
Published 4:51 am, Friday, June 26, 2015
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The father of an infant who died from what doctors say were nonaccidental injuries has been accused of child abuse.
The Albuquerque Journal reports (http://bit.ly/1TRi5fH ) 25-year-old Spenser Phillips was charged Wednesday with child abuse in connection with the death of his 2-month-old son.
On May 30, the baby was taken to University of New Mexico Hospital in critical condition with a brain bleed.
According to a criminal complaint, a doctor told police the baby had suffered abusive head trauma and nonaccidental injuries.
The child's mother told police Phillips had been caring for the child that day.
In an interview, Phillips told police the child had fallen out of his chair and hit his head.
The child died days later.
Phillips has been booked into the county jail on $50,000 bail.
Friday, May 1, 2015
After 6 years, DA finally drops murder charges against 10-year-old boy who shot abusive custodial father (Belen, New Mexico)
While there are some children who murder their parents because of mental illness and/or sociopathology, research shows that the majority are severely abused kids. That's why I'm suspicious as to why the father was never indicated for abuse--I don't think the authorities want to admit that they let this guy slide so long through their own incompetence/indifference that the son took the matter into his own hands.
And if Mom was really the only abusive one, why would they let the boy live with her after the father was killed? They don't even seem to believe their own stories.
Here is our post on this case from 2009.
http://www.abqjournal.com/577102/news/da-to-drop-first-degree-murder-charge-against-belen-boy.html
DA to drop murder charge against boy who shot dad
By Julia M. Dendinger / Valencia County News-bulletin Assistant Editor
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 at 10:35 pm
PUBLISHED: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 at 3:51 pm
BELEN – After several years of legal setbacks, prosecutors say they will drop a first-degree murder charge filed against a Belen boy who was 10 years old when he allegedly shot his father in the back of the head with a shotgun at the family home.
“This was the hardest decision I’ve had to make during my time as district attorney. This is a case that seems to have been fatally flawed from the beginning,” 13th Judicial District Attorney Lemuel Martinez told the News-Bulletin on Wednesday.
Benjamin Hilburn was charged after allegedly killing his father, 42-year-old Bryon Hilburn, in August 2009.
Testimony by Hilburn’s then-6-year-old sister about the shooting, and the boy’s admissions when he called 911 and to officers at the scene – “I shot my dad in the head because he was punishing me,” he told them – were ruled inadmissible.
An appeal by the District Attorney’s Office was unsuccessful.
Martinez said that given the evidence left to use at trial, there was little choice but to drop the charge because the existing evidence was insufficient.
He said his office would seek to dismiss the charges without prejudice in the event new witnesses or evidence come to light in the future.
Throughout the long process, Martinez said it was always the intent of the state to obtain treatment for Benjamin Hilburn.
“Any child of 10 who responds to anger, disrespect or rage in a violent manner, especially using a deadly weapon, is in need of treatment so they can address these kinds of events in a nonviolent way,” the district attorney said.
“That is not going to happen in this case. The child is going to get away with murder.”
Testimony excluded
In June 2011, retired 13th Judicial District Judge John Pope declared Hilburn competent to stand trial.
That started the clock, giving the state four months to adjudicate the case, but appeals by both sides stretched that time limit out to this year.
In May 2012, pro-tem District Judge Tommy Jewell ruled that Hilburn’s sister, Emily, who was 8 years old by then, was not fit to testify as she unable to distinguish truth from fantasy. Experts testified that the girl was in a dissociative state on several occasions while being evaluated.
The state asked Jewell to reconsider his decision, Martinez said, arguing that the testimony from the expert the judge based his decision on came solely from interviews with the girl’s mother, not Emily herself.
“We believe the judge could have interviewed the child himself to determine the veracity of her testimony, the quality of her memory and ability to tell the truth,” Martinez said Wednesday. “The expert did not interview the child.”
After the judge denied the request for reconsideration, Martinez said the state went so far as to seek advice from the state Attorney General’s Office to see if it had a basis for an appeal.
“We were told it would be a very high standard to meet and we wouldn’t prevail,” he said.
In August 2013, just days before Hilburn’s trial was scheduled to begin, District Judge George Eichwald agreed to allow the defense to appeal his decision to allow the use of the 911 recording from the night of the shooting.
The New Mexico Court of Appeals ultimately ruled the 911 tape couldn’t be used at trial. In a recording of the 911 call, the young Hilburn tells a dispatcher about the shooting.
“I was just so over my head,” he told the dispatcher.
“I shot him in the back of the head. I got so angry at him.”
911 call
The boy repeatedly asked the dispatcher for emergency responders to “hurry up.”
When officers arrived at his house on Vivian Drive in Belen, Hilburn told them to go quickly into the house and then said he shot his father.
Police found Bryon Hilburn lying behind the doorway, partially blocking it.
He was bleeding heavily from the back of his head but still alive.
The report says that Benjamin Hilburn led police to the weapon reportedly used in the shooting, a camouflage-colored 20-gauge shotgun.
Police found a spent shell casing in the hallway.
Officers placed Benjamin Hilburn into custody, and his sister eventually was handed over to her grandfather.
According to the report, officers described Benjamin as emotionless after the shooting.
His sister told police she was playing video games when she saw her brother holding a weapon.
She said she heard a gunshot, and then saw her father lying on the floor.
Bryon Hilburn was pronounced dead at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque about an hour after the initial call.
The New Mexico children’s code prevents children under 13 from making statements that incriminate themselves, Martinez said, so both Hilburn’s statements to the police on the night of the shooting and the 911 recording were ruled inadmissible for that same reason.
Benjamin Hilburn was allowed to move to Oklahoma in 2013 to live with his mother, Monica Albear, while awaiting trial.
After her son was charged, Albear said her ex-husband abused both her and their three children.
The state’s Children, Youth and Families Department investigated nine complaints of abuse at the home but substantiated only one – against Albear.
At the time of the shooting, Bryon Hilburn had custody of Benjamin, and Martinez said that to his knowledge, the complaints to CYFD were made and investigated while Albear and Byron Hilburn were still together.
“While he was in his father’s custody, I don’t know of any reports,” he said. Martinez said that to the best of his knowledge, Hilburn is not receiving any kind of treatment.
“It is our hope he is,” Martinez said. “We are fearful for his mother and sister’s well-being based on his previous actions.”
And if Mom was really the only abusive one, why would they let the boy live with her after the father was killed? They don't even seem to believe their own stories.
Here is our post on this case from 2009.
http://www.abqjournal.com/577102/news/da-to-drop-first-degree-murder-charge-against-belen-boy.html
DA to drop murder charge against boy who shot dad
By Julia M. Dendinger / Valencia County News-bulletin Assistant Editor
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 at 10:35 pm
PUBLISHED: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 at 3:51 pm
BELEN – After several years of legal setbacks, prosecutors say they will drop a first-degree murder charge filed against a Belen boy who was 10 years old when he allegedly shot his father in the back of the head with a shotgun at the family home.
“This was the hardest decision I’ve had to make during my time as district attorney. This is a case that seems to have been fatally flawed from the beginning,” 13th Judicial District Attorney Lemuel Martinez told the News-Bulletin on Wednesday.
Benjamin Hilburn was charged after allegedly killing his father, 42-year-old Bryon Hilburn, in August 2009.
Testimony by Hilburn’s then-6-year-old sister about the shooting, and the boy’s admissions when he called 911 and to officers at the scene – “I shot my dad in the head because he was punishing me,” he told them – were ruled inadmissible.
An appeal by the District Attorney’s Office was unsuccessful.
Martinez said that given the evidence left to use at trial, there was little choice but to drop the charge because the existing evidence was insufficient.
He said his office would seek to dismiss the charges without prejudice in the event new witnesses or evidence come to light in the future.
Throughout the long process, Martinez said it was always the intent of the state to obtain treatment for Benjamin Hilburn.
“Any child of 10 who responds to anger, disrespect or rage in a violent manner, especially using a deadly weapon, is in need of treatment so they can address these kinds of events in a nonviolent way,” the district attorney said.
“That is not going to happen in this case. The child is going to get away with murder.”
Testimony excluded
In June 2011, retired 13th Judicial District Judge John Pope declared Hilburn competent to stand trial.
That started the clock, giving the state four months to adjudicate the case, but appeals by both sides stretched that time limit out to this year.
In May 2012, pro-tem District Judge Tommy Jewell ruled that Hilburn’s sister, Emily, who was 8 years old by then, was not fit to testify as she unable to distinguish truth from fantasy. Experts testified that the girl was in a dissociative state on several occasions while being evaluated.
The state asked Jewell to reconsider his decision, Martinez said, arguing that the testimony from the expert the judge based his decision on came solely from interviews with the girl’s mother, not Emily herself.
“We believe the judge could have interviewed the child himself to determine the veracity of her testimony, the quality of her memory and ability to tell the truth,” Martinez said Wednesday. “The expert did not interview the child.”
After the judge denied the request for reconsideration, Martinez said the state went so far as to seek advice from the state Attorney General’s Office to see if it had a basis for an appeal.
“We were told it would be a very high standard to meet and we wouldn’t prevail,” he said.
In August 2013, just days before Hilburn’s trial was scheduled to begin, District Judge George Eichwald agreed to allow the defense to appeal his decision to allow the use of the 911 recording from the night of the shooting.
The New Mexico Court of Appeals ultimately ruled the 911 tape couldn’t be used at trial. In a recording of the 911 call, the young Hilburn tells a dispatcher about the shooting.
“I was just so over my head,” he told the dispatcher.
“I shot him in the back of the head. I got so angry at him.”
911 call
The boy repeatedly asked the dispatcher for emergency responders to “hurry up.”
When officers arrived at his house on Vivian Drive in Belen, Hilburn told them to go quickly into the house and then said he shot his father.
Police found Bryon Hilburn lying behind the doorway, partially blocking it.
He was bleeding heavily from the back of his head but still alive.
The report says that Benjamin Hilburn led police to the weapon reportedly used in the shooting, a camouflage-colored 20-gauge shotgun.
Police found a spent shell casing in the hallway.
Officers placed Benjamin Hilburn into custody, and his sister eventually was handed over to her grandfather.
According to the report, officers described Benjamin as emotionless after the shooting.
His sister told police she was playing video games when she saw her brother holding a weapon.
She said she heard a gunshot, and then saw her father lying on the floor.
Bryon Hilburn was pronounced dead at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque about an hour after the initial call.
The New Mexico children’s code prevents children under 13 from making statements that incriminate themselves, Martinez said, so both Hilburn’s statements to the police on the night of the shooting and the 911 recording were ruled inadmissible for that same reason.
Benjamin Hilburn was allowed to move to Oklahoma in 2013 to live with his mother, Monica Albear, while awaiting trial.
After her son was charged, Albear said her ex-husband abused both her and their three children.
The state’s Children, Youth and Families Department investigated nine complaints of abuse at the home but substantiated only one – against Albear.
At the time of the shooting, Bryon Hilburn had custody of Benjamin, and Martinez said that to his knowledge, the complaints to CYFD were made and investigated while Albear and Byron Hilburn were still together.
“While he was in his father’s custody, I don’t know of any reports,” he said. Martinez said that to the best of his knowledge, Hilburn is not receiving any kind of treatment.
“It is our hope he is,” Martinez said. “We are fearful for his mother and sister’s well-being based on his previous actions.”
Monday, April 20, 2015
After being in dad's custody, 6-year-old boy tests positive for meth (Alamogordo, New Mexico)
Another one of those news articles that omits more than it includes. Just what was this little boy's "living situation"? Of course, they refuse to say. What do you mean by just "after being in the custody of his father"? That there was a court-ordered custody agreement here? An informal agreement? That Daddy was merely babysitting while Mom was at work? What?
Of course by refusing to clarify these points, you raise other points. If in fact the father had court-ordered custody/visitation rights, then why was a man on probation for DWI given any unsupervised custody/visitation rights at all? And given that he has a meth addiction issue as well, we can only assume that this fact was ignored as well? What else was ignored? If this was court-ordered custody/visitation, who ordered it and who supported the decision?
If the mother had been living in the home, I suspect she would have been charged with failure to protect. The fact that she isn't--in fact she's not mentioned at all--speaks volumes.
Dad is identified as FREDDY PADILLA.
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3770237.shtml#.VTUUQNFFCbB
New Mexico dad charged after son tests positive for meth
Created: 04/18/2015 12:50 PM By: APNews Now
ALAMOGORDO, N.M. (AP) — An Alamogordo father is facing a felony child abuse charge after his 6-year-old son tested positive for methamphetamine exposure.
Court documents say the boy tested positive after being in the custody of his father, 37-year-old Freddy Padilla. It wasn't immediately clear if Padilla had an attorney.
The Alamogordo Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/1yBVJqX) Padilla was already jailed at the Otero County Detention Center for probation violation in an unrelated DWI case.
Police Detective Lt. Roger Schoolcraft says the department began investing possible abuse after receiving a report from state child welfare workers on the boy's living situation.
A sample of the boy's hair was tested. Police say the concentration of meth in the child's hair was consistent with a level that would be found in a recreational drug user's system.
Of course by refusing to clarify these points, you raise other points. If in fact the father had court-ordered custody/visitation rights, then why was a man on probation for DWI given any unsupervised custody/visitation rights at all? And given that he has a meth addiction issue as well, we can only assume that this fact was ignored as well? What else was ignored? If this was court-ordered custody/visitation, who ordered it and who supported the decision?
If the mother had been living in the home, I suspect she would have been charged with failure to protect. The fact that she isn't--in fact she's not mentioned at all--speaks volumes.
Dad is identified as FREDDY PADILLA.
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3770237.shtml#.VTUUQNFFCbB
New Mexico dad charged after son tests positive for meth
Created: 04/18/2015 12:50 PM By: APNews Now
ALAMOGORDO, N.M. (AP) — An Alamogordo father is facing a felony child abuse charge after his 6-year-old son tested positive for methamphetamine exposure.
Court documents say the boy tested positive after being in the custody of his father, 37-year-old Freddy Padilla. It wasn't immediately clear if Padilla had an attorney.
The Alamogordo Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/1yBVJqX) Padilla was already jailed at the Otero County Detention Center for probation violation in an unrelated DWI case.
Police Detective Lt. Roger Schoolcraft says the department began investing possible abuse after receiving a report from state child welfare workers on the boy's living situation.
A sample of the boy's hair was tested. Police say the concentration of meth in the child's hair was consistent with a level that would be found in a recreational drug user's system.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Killer dad was in "custody battle" with mom when he murdered 7-year-old daughter (Rio Rancho, New Mexico)
More on killer dad LEONARD GABALDON.
Notice all the crap that usually accompanies a father with custody rights who murdered a child. We're told how he "loved" his daughter and how she "meant the world to him."
Bullsh**.
Shooting and killing a little girl is not a sign of love. It's a sign of that you regard the child as little more than a thing to be eliminated so as to punish mom--all so she could never get custody during your "custody fight" (war).
Total abuse and control--accelerated to the blood lust level.
In that light, I think it is extremely likely that it was the FATHER who was responsible for the previous incidents of domestic violence. Unfortunately, narcissistic abusers are very adept at muddying the waters and framing their victims as the abusers and deflecting attention away from themselves.
It's too bad that the authorities never took a serious look at this father, as he obviously should have been denied all access. No access=no victims.
http://www.koat.com/news/rio-rancho-police-investigate-suspicious-deaths/31226716
Police: Gun used in apparent Rio Rancho murder-suicide Father, 7-year-old found dead in Rio Rancho home
By Aaron Hilf
Police: Gun used in apparent Rio Rancho murder-suicide
Father, 7-year-old found dead in Rio Rancho home
UPDATED 5:45 PM MST Feb 13, 2015
Albuquerque police investigating triple shooting
RIO RANCHO, N.M. —Rio Rancho police said the bodies of a 56-year-old man and a 7-year-old girl were found in a home in the 600 block of Diez y Ocho Court Wednesday night.
Police were called to the home around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in connection with a child custody issue. A woman said she was trying to get hold of her ex-husband and young daughter, but there was no answer at the home.
When police arrived, the man's son answered the door. He said the man and the girl were sleeping. When they asked him to wake the two, the son told police they were dead.
Police believe the deaths were likely a murder-suicide.
Authorities are still waiting for an official cause of death but believe Leonard Gabaldon, 56, killed his 7-year-old daughter, Viktoria, and then himself with a gun.
“When I learned about it I said, ‘Wow,’” said neighbor Jeff Castillo.
Stuffed animals and flowers now sit outside the home.
(He was a) very soft-spoken person,” said neighbor Danny Nevarez. “He loved his daughter. I mean, a lot.”
Close family friends say the father was in the middle of a custody battle with his ex-wife. Court records show the two were divorced in 2005.
Rio Rancho police have several records of domestic situations involving the two. In April 2014, Gabaldon contacted police saying he was receiving threatening texts and phone calls from his ex-wife. He also called police in 2004 and 2005. In one of the cases, he told officers she had kicked holes in two doors.
No arrests were made in any of the cases, and police said they haven’t had any similar reports since 2007.
Neighbors said Viktoria was a beautiful little girl that meant the world to her father. One neighbor said he saw her with her father last weekend, putting up balloons for a birthday party.
Notice all the crap that usually accompanies a father with custody rights who murdered a child. We're told how he "loved" his daughter and how she "meant the world to him."
Bullsh**.
Shooting and killing a little girl is not a sign of love. It's a sign of that you regard the child as little more than a thing to be eliminated so as to punish mom--all so she could never get custody during your "custody fight" (war).
Total abuse and control--accelerated to the blood lust level.
In that light, I think it is extremely likely that it was the FATHER who was responsible for the previous incidents of domestic violence. Unfortunately, narcissistic abusers are very adept at muddying the waters and framing their victims as the abusers and deflecting attention away from themselves.
It's too bad that the authorities never took a serious look at this father, as he obviously should have been denied all access. No access=no victims.
http://www.koat.com/news/rio-rancho-police-investigate-suspicious-deaths/31226716
Police: Gun used in apparent Rio Rancho murder-suicide Father, 7-year-old found dead in Rio Rancho home
By Aaron Hilf
Police: Gun used in apparent Rio Rancho murder-suicide
Father, 7-year-old found dead in Rio Rancho home
UPDATED 5:45 PM MST Feb 13, 2015
Albuquerque police investigating triple shooting
RIO RANCHO, N.M. —Rio Rancho police said the bodies of a 56-year-old man and a 7-year-old girl were found in a home in the 600 block of Diez y Ocho Court Wednesday night.
Police were called to the home around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in connection with a child custody issue. A woman said she was trying to get hold of her ex-husband and young daughter, but there was no answer at the home.
When police arrived, the man's son answered the door. He said the man and the girl were sleeping. When they asked him to wake the two, the son told police they were dead.
Police believe the deaths were likely a murder-suicide.
Authorities are still waiting for an official cause of death but believe Leonard Gabaldon, 56, killed his 7-year-old daughter, Viktoria, and then himself with a gun.
“When I learned about it I said, ‘Wow,’” said neighbor Jeff Castillo.
Stuffed animals and flowers now sit outside the home.
(He was a) very soft-spoken person,” said neighbor Danny Nevarez. “He loved his daughter. I mean, a lot.”
Close family friends say the father was in the middle of a custody battle with his ex-wife. Court records show the two were divorced in 2005.
Rio Rancho police have several records of domestic situations involving the two. In April 2014, Gabaldon contacted police saying he was receiving threatening texts and phone calls from his ex-wife. He also called police in 2004 and 2005. In one of the cases, he told officers she had kicked holes in two doors.
No arrests were made in any of the cases, and police said they haven’t had any similar reports since 2007.
Neighbors said Viktoria was a beautiful little girl that meant the world to her father. One neighbor said he saw her with her father last weekend, putting up balloons for a birthday party.
Dad kills 7-year-old daughter during custody time (Rio Rancho, New Mexico)
Sounds like killer dad LEONARD GABALDON has more that weekend visitation as the murdered child celebrated her birthday over the weekend, and he didn't snuff out her life until Wednesday--when Mom was supposed to pick her up.
Obviously a crime designed to "punish" the mother for leaving this sicko. Yet another father who NEVER should have been granted any access at all.
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s3705263.shtml#.VOE-m9E5CG8
Rio Rancho police identify father, daughter in suspected murder-suicide
Updated: 02/13/2015 5:48 PM | Created: 02/12/2015 8:50 AM
By: Elizabeth Reed and Blair Miller, KOB.com
Rio Rancho police believe a 56-year-old man shot and killed his 7-year-old daughter before turning the gun on himself inside their home on Diez Y Ocho Court Wednesday night.
According to Lt. Paul Rogers, preliminary results from the autopsies indicate they both died from gunshot wounds.
According to RRPD, officers responded to a disturbance at the home regarding a child custody issue around 5:30 p.m. A woman at the scene, Liliya Rivera, told police she was attempting to contact her ex-husband to pick up her daughter.
Officers then made contact with the man's 23-year-old son, Brandon Gabaldon, inside the house. He said his father, Leonard Gabaldon, was sleeping.
After police asked him to wake up Leonard, Brandon returned to the door and told them his father and sister were dead.
Officers then entered the home and located both bodies. Detectives were summoned to investigate the events that led to the deaths and process the scene for evidence.
The young victim, Viktoria Gabaldon, attended a private school in Rio Rancho. Police say the facility has been notified of the tragedy.
The landlord of the home, who lives next door, told KOB Thursday the girl just had a birthday party last weekend and everything seemed fine at the time. He said he never expected what police found inside the home Wednesday night.
"She was a pretty little girl; nice, friendly -- you could tell she wasn't afraid to talk," said the landlord, Danny Nevarez.
Nevarez says the man had recently lost his job.
"Just Tuesday, him and I hung out together and he was fine," Nevarez said. "We worked on the roof and he borrowed my truck to go to the dump, and everything was fine. All this time he was talking to me about his divorce; he was having a hard time with her."
But Nevarez said the complaints about the man's ex weren't out of the ordinary.
The cause of death will be determined by the Officer of the Medical Investigator after autopsies have been completed.
Police have questioned the son and say he's not expected to face charges.
"I feel sorry for the son," Nevarez said, "because now, he doesn't have anybody."
Obviously a crime designed to "punish" the mother for leaving this sicko. Yet another father who NEVER should have been granted any access at all.
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s3705263.shtml#.VOE-m9E5CG8
Rio Rancho police identify father, daughter in suspected murder-suicide
Updated: 02/13/2015 5:48 PM | Created: 02/12/2015 8:50 AM
By: Elizabeth Reed and Blair Miller, KOB.com
Rio Rancho police believe a 56-year-old man shot and killed his 7-year-old daughter before turning the gun on himself inside their home on Diez Y Ocho Court Wednesday night.
According to Lt. Paul Rogers, preliminary results from the autopsies indicate they both died from gunshot wounds.
According to RRPD, officers responded to a disturbance at the home regarding a child custody issue around 5:30 p.m. A woman at the scene, Liliya Rivera, told police she was attempting to contact her ex-husband to pick up her daughter.
Officers then made contact with the man's 23-year-old son, Brandon Gabaldon, inside the house. He said his father, Leonard Gabaldon, was sleeping.
After police asked him to wake up Leonard, Brandon returned to the door and told them his father and sister were dead.
Officers then entered the home and located both bodies. Detectives were summoned to investigate the events that led to the deaths and process the scene for evidence.
The young victim, Viktoria Gabaldon, attended a private school in Rio Rancho. Police say the facility has been notified of the tragedy.
The landlord of the home, who lives next door, told KOB Thursday the girl just had a birthday party last weekend and everything seemed fine at the time. He said he never expected what police found inside the home Wednesday night.
"She was a pretty little girl; nice, friendly -- you could tell she wasn't afraid to talk," said the landlord, Danny Nevarez.
Nevarez says the man had recently lost his job.
"Just Tuesday, him and I hung out together and he was fine," Nevarez said. "We worked on the roof and he borrowed my truck to go to the dump, and everything was fine. All this time he was talking to me about his divorce; he was having a hard time with her."
But Nevarez said the complaints about the man's ex weren't out of the ordinary.
The cause of death will be determined by the Officer of the Medical Investigator after autopsies have been completed.
Police have questioned the son and say he's not expected to face charges.
"I feel sorry for the son," Nevarez said, "because now, he doesn't have anybody."
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Dad with previous conviction for domestic battery charged with sexually abusing 4-year-old daughter during visitation (Farmington, New Mexico)
Of course, the fathers-right lawyer is smearing the mother as a liar and alienator. Don't they always? It goes without saying that this will be served up as a "poor daddies have no rights" case.
In fact, it's the exact opposite. Why should a father with a CONVICTION for domestic battery, and a history of abuse against the mother, have any access at all? Or any credibility at all? Knowing how abusers think, you could almost predict that the father would somehow use the child to retaliate against the mother, which he did.
Dad is identified as ROBERT BATTAGLIA.
http://www.daily-times.com/four_corners-news/ci_27366972/da-plans-charge-bloomfield-father-district-court-molesting
DA plans to charge Bloomfield father in district court for allegedly molesting 4-year-old daughter
Mother: Ex-husband deserves maximum sentence
By Steve Garrison The Daily Times
Updated: 01/21/2015 08:20:54 PM
FARMINGTON — A 26-year-old Bloomfield man is expected to be charged in district court with two child sex offenses after being accused of molesting his 4-year-old daughter.
Robert Battaglia was charged in November in Farmington Magistrate Court with first-degree criminal sexual penetration of a child and criminal sexual contact with a minor, a third-degree felony. The case was dismissed without prejudice last week.
San Juan County Chief Deputy District Attorney Dustin O'Brien said his office will soon refile the case in district court. He said his office has decided to pursue charges in district court for procedural reasons.
Because of the alleged victim's age, O'Brien said, a judge will need to determine whether she is competent to testify in the case.
O'Brien said competency means the child must "understand the difference between true and false and be able to prove to the court's satisfaction that they will be truthful." He said even if the child is allowed to testify, the defense may dispute that testimony.
While those issues can be resolved in magistrate court, O'Brien said, it would likely be appealed to the district court anyway, regardless of the magistrate judge's decision.
According to the arrest warrant, the young girl's mother, Casey Emery, contacted Aztec police officers on Oct. 23.
Emery told police her 4-year-old daughter made statements to family members indicating she had tongue-kissed her father, Battaglia, and had sexual contact with him.
Emery further told police her daughter had recently tried kissing her uncle and her little sister on the mouth.
The girl later told investigators she kissed her father on his genitals, and he did the same to her, the warrant states. She said none of this occurred when other people were present, according to the warrant. Attorney Arlon Stoker of the Stoker Law Firm is representing Battaglia. He said his client "adamantly denies" any of what allegedly took place.
Stoker said he believes Emery, who divorced Battaglia in February, encouraged her daughter to make the claims as an act of revenge.
"We believe that this was taken up by his ex-wife, who laid all of this stuff out on the lawn," he said.
Emery denied that claim in an interview with The Daily Times.
She said while Battaglia was abusive to her during their relationship, they were not fighting when her daughter said she was molested.
According to court records, Battaglia was found guilty in August 2010 of battery against a household member.
Emery said in the interview that her daughter had been lashing out before she told her about the alleged abuse.
"She was throwing fits," Emery said. "She was crying like a 2-year-old. She started reverting really bad."
Emery said her daughter is in counseling and now recovering.
She said she would like Battaglia to receive a maximum sentence if convicted.
"She is more grown-up than a 4-year-old should have to be, because of him," she said.
Battaglia faces up to 24 years in prison if convicted of both offenses.
In fact, it's the exact opposite. Why should a father with a CONVICTION for domestic battery, and a history of abuse against the mother, have any access at all? Or any credibility at all? Knowing how abusers think, you could almost predict that the father would somehow use the child to retaliate against the mother, which he did.
Dad is identified as ROBERT BATTAGLIA.
http://www.daily-times.com/four_corners-news/ci_27366972/da-plans-charge-bloomfield-father-district-court-molesting
DA plans to charge Bloomfield father in district court for allegedly molesting 4-year-old daughter
Mother: Ex-husband deserves maximum sentence
By Steve Garrison The Daily Times
Updated: 01/21/2015 08:20:54 PM
FARMINGTON — A 26-year-old Bloomfield man is expected to be charged in district court with two child sex offenses after being accused of molesting his 4-year-old daughter.
Robert Battaglia was charged in November in Farmington Magistrate Court with first-degree criminal sexual penetration of a child and criminal sexual contact with a minor, a third-degree felony. The case was dismissed without prejudice last week.
San Juan County Chief Deputy District Attorney Dustin O'Brien said his office will soon refile the case in district court. He said his office has decided to pursue charges in district court for procedural reasons.
Because of the alleged victim's age, O'Brien said, a judge will need to determine whether she is competent to testify in the case.
O'Brien said competency means the child must "understand the difference between true and false and be able to prove to the court's satisfaction that they will be truthful." He said even if the child is allowed to testify, the defense may dispute that testimony.
While those issues can be resolved in magistrate court, O'Brien said, it would likely be appealed to the district court anyway, regardless of the magistrate judge's decision.
According to the arrest warrant, the young girl's mother, Casey Emery, contacted Aztec police officers on Oct. 23.
Emery told police her 4-year-old daughter made statements to family members indicating she had tongue-kissed her father, Battaglia, and had sexual contact with him.
Emery further told police her daughter had recently tried kissing her uncle and her little sister on the mouth.
The girl later told investigators she kissed her father on his genitals, and he did the same to her, the warrant states. She said none of this occurred when other people were present, according to the warrant. Attorney Arlon Stoker of the Stoker Law Firm is representing Battaglia. He said his client "adamantly denies" any of what allegedly took place.
Stoker said he believes Emery, who divorced Battaglia in February, encouraged her daughter to make the claims as an act of revenge.
"We believe that this was taken up by his ex-wife, who laid all of this stuff out on the lawn," he said.
Emery denied that claim in an interview with The Daily Times.
She said while Battaglia was abusive to her during their relationship, they were not fighting when her daughter said she was molested.
According to court records, Battaglia was found guilty in August 2010 of battery against a household member.
Emery said in the interview that her daughter had been lashing out before she told her about the alleged abuse.
"She was throwing fits," Emery said. "She was crying like a 2-year-old. She started reverting really bad."
Emery said her daughter is in counseling and now recovering.
She said she would like Battaglia to receive a maximum sentence if convicted.
"She is more grown-up than a 4-year-old should have to be, because of him," she said.
Battaglia faces up to 24 years in prison if convicted of both offenses.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Kids most often die at the hands of male caregivers, half of whom are dads; mom living alone at no increased risk of abuse (New Mexico)
Once in a while, you see the media report the unvarnished truth. And that is that children are at highest risk from male caregivers, half of whom are fathers. Yes, unrelated boyfriends are also a risk factor. But then, low-income families that are often supported by a mom earning minimum wage in the fast-food industry seldom involve marriage. That is NOT to say that the presence of a father in the home offers any magical protection, contrary to FR lies. Notice that single mothers (usually of lower income) with NO MAN in the home do not differ in abuse outcomes from married households which tend to be middle class.
http://www.scsun-news.com/silver_city-news/ci_27136071?source=rss
Better child-care options can help combat fatal child abuse New Mexico children die of abuse often at hands of boyfriends or stepparents
By Lindsey Anderson
Las Cruces Sun-News
Posted: 12/14/2014 03:32:52 PM MST
Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series examining solutions to risk factors for fatal child abuse and neglect in New Mexico.
LAS CRUCES
The remnants of 15-month-old Uriah Vasquez Ordoñez's body arrived at the Office of the Medical Investigator in 19 brown paper bags and a Tupperware container in August 2004.
Sixty-five pieces of the toddler's skull. Nine tooth fragments. Fifteen pieces of vertebral bones. Forty-six rib fragments. Twenty-nine pieces of bones from his arms and legs.
That's all investigators could recover from the site where Freddy Ordoñez burned his son's lifeless body in the desert near Oñate High School on July 30, 2004.
The next morning, Ordoñez, whom police had already arrested for killing his son, led investigators to the site where he cremated the boy's body off Pecan Lane and Porter Drive. Once there, Ordoñez dropped to his knees, made the sign of the cross and prayed.
Ordoñez told investigators he spent hours fanning the fire to cremate his son "for the body to be free," one detective's report states. He described throwing his son's ashes in the air.
Investigators combed through the mixed dirt and ash with screens and shovels, recovering the 164 bone fragments.
Expanding aid
Ordoñez said nothing when LCPD detectives asked how Uriah died. They asked again. "It was stupid," he replied.
Detectives learned Ordoñez was watching Uriah earlier in the week while his girlfriend Cecilia Vasquez, the boy's mother, worked at Subway.
Uriah refused to eat. Ordoñez cuffed Uriah on the head, picked him up by his ears and threw him onto a couch, according to police reports. Vasquez told police Ordoñez had tossed Uriah into a bathtub.
Ordoñez was often rough with Uriah and never believed the boy was his, Vasquez told police.
Being under the care of men who lack emotional attachment or caregivers of either gender who don't understand child development increase the risk of fatal child abuse, according to the National Center for Child Death Review.
Uriah is not the only child to die from abuse or neglect in Southern New Mexico in recent years and whose case mirrored those factors.
There was Isaiah Lawrence Jimenez. Armando Wood. Daniel Medina. Alizandra Jasso. Brianna Lopez.
Their mothers were at work, in jail, asleep or running errands while boyfriends, stepparents or other relatives killed them.
New Mexico has consistently had one of the highest rates of fatal child abuse and neglect in the country in recent years. For four of the past five years, New Mexico has been among the eight states with the highest number of per-capita child abuse and neglect deaths.
In 2010 and 2008, New Mexico had the second and third highest rate of deaths in the country, respectively, with 19 children dying from abuse and neglect in each of those years. #The state is also at the bottom of the pack in child well-being, ranking 49th or 50th on a national Kids Count study the past three years.
There's no cure-all for addressing the complex factors that lead to fatal child abuse, but experts say making quality child care more affordable for families would give them better options than leaving children with unreliable caregivers, like Ordoñez.
Yet full-time care for a child age 4 or younger averages $6,000 to $6,800 each year in New Mexico, or about what it costs for a year's undergraduate tuition at New Mexico State University.
For many families struggling financially, the cost often puts such care out of reach, said Veronica C. Garcia, director of the nonprofit advocacy group New Mexico Voices for Children. Advocates like Garcia want the state to make child care affordable by expanding subsidies for low-income families.
Few studies focus on the risk factors for fatal abuse, but the National Center for Child Death Review, which trains state agencies to review child deaths, lists a lack of suitable child care as one of the major factors putting children at risk of dying from abuse or neglect. Reliable child care ensures a trained caregiver is looking after a child while allowing parents to work or run errands, relieving the burden of social isolation.
Many states with consistently low rates of fatal child abuse and neglect and positive rankings in child well-being offer at least some child-care assistance to families earning double the poverty level. The federal poverty level is currently $15,730 for a family of two, or $23,850 for a family of four.
New Hampshire offers child-care assistance for families making up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level. That state ranked fourth in child well-being this year and had a fatal child abuse rate of 0.36 deaths per 1,000 children in 2012. New Mexico's rate was nearly 10 times higher: 3.11 deaths per 1,000 children.
North Dakota, which also ranks low in fatal child abuse and high in child well-being, offers assistance for families making up to nearly three times the federal poverty level.
New Mexico used to offer assistance to families making up to twice the poverty level before state budget cuts in 2010.
Currently, new families can sign up for the program if they earn below 150 percent of the poverty level. If a family receives the subsidy and then their income rises to above 150 percent, they can stay in the program as long as they earn below 200 percent, Children, Youth and Families Department spokesman Henry Varela said.
About 750 families are on a waiting list to receive subsidies, Varela said.
Dangerous caregivers
New Mexico In Depth and the Sun-News examined hundreds of pages of police reports, prison records, autopsy findings and news articles on 15 fatal child abuse and neglect cases in Doña, Luna and Grant counties from 2001 to 2013.
The investigation found many children were fatally injured under the watch of a stepparent, mother's boyfriend, distant relative or a father who doubted whether the child was truly his. Other male caregivers appeared to not understand a child's development, violently punishing young children who wet their pants or shaking babies who wouldn't stop crying.
Two-thirds of the 20 people convicted of killing the children were men. That portion rises even higher if you discount the three women who were convicted of doing nothing to stop others' abuse rather than directly harming their children themselves. Of the adults whose actions directly killed the children, three-quarters were men.
Half of the men in the 15 cases were not related to the children they killed. Two who were fathers, Ordoñez and Andrew Walters, believed the children they killed weren't biologically theirs, according to police reports and then-District Attorney Susana Martinez, whose office prosecuted both cases.
Ordoñez and Vasquez declined requests to speak with NMID and the Sun-News. The details of their and Uriah's story have been gathered from police reports, autopsy findings, prison records and news articles.
After Uriah's death, Vasquez told police Ordoñez never loved the boy. Because she got pregnant with Uriah so quickly — the day Ordoñez was let out of prison — Ordoñez always questioned whether Uriah was his, Vasquez said, according to LCPD reports. Unlike their daughter, the boy didn't look like Ordoñez, she said.
Ordoñez was rough and impatient with Uriah, Vasquez said. She once sent the boy to his grandmother's for a few days, hoping time apart would ease tension. Ordoñez continued to watch Uriah while Vasquez worked.
Garcia, of Voices for Children, wants the state to restore subsidies for all families earning up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level so more parents can have reliable, certified caregivers watch their children. Even that would fall short of what states like North Dakota and New Hampshire offer families.
CYFD will consider seeking "incremental increases" to income eligibility as the budget allows, Varela said.
'Already gone'
There's no way to know if reliable childcare would have saved Uriah, but being under Ordoñez's watch proved fatal for the toddler.
Vasquez, then 21, went to her job at Subway that Tuesday in July 2004, leaving Uriah and their 2-year-old daughter with Ordoñez.
Ordoñez called Vasquez at work. Something was wrong with Uriah, he said. Come home.
Vasquez planned to head right back to work, but she found Uriah "limp." "His eyes were not focusing on anything," she later told investigators, according to police reports. Bruises covered his ears and his neck. A scrape ran up one of his legs. A bump rose from the back of his head. Uriah couldn't hold himself up. He threw up all night.
Vasquez wanted to take Uriah to the doctor, but Ordoñez refused. He reminded Vasquez of another time doctors said Uriah's vomiting was a symptom of a virus that needed to run its course.
By Thursday, Vasquez thought Uriah seemed better. She returned to work. Ordoñez called again, saying the boy was twitching. Vasquez returned home to find Ordoñez giving Uriah CPR.
She urged him to call 911 but he refused, saying they would get in trouble if they took the baby to the hospital with bruises. She tried to call several times but Ordoñez hid the phone.
"He kept telling her that he was already gone, there was nothing that could be done and they couldn't call the cops," the LCPD report says. "She said he told her Uriah was their son and they could bury him the way they wanted to, they didn't need anyone to tell them what to do."
Vasquez's boss later told investigators Ordoñez had previously physically abused Vasquez, according to a police report.
Vasquez lay with Uriah and tried to comfort him as he struggled to breathe. His breaths grew further and further apart, then stopped.
Children at risk
Other deaths of southern New Mexico children illustrate the dangers of leaving kids with unreliable caregivers.
George Trujillo apparently shook his cousin's son, 21-month-old Armando Wood, and lifted him by his chin while watching the boy in 2008, according to news reports. The autopsy found blunt force injuries to the child's head and scrapes on his neck and face. Trujillo was sentenced to three years in prison and has since been released.
Isaiah Lawrence Jimenez wouldn't stop crying one night in 2009, according to sheriff's reports. His aunt's boyfriend, Daniel Holguin, tossed him in the air, caught him by a leg, spanked him and suffocated him, Holguin's daughter later told investigators. Holguin was watching the 4-month-old while his girlfriend worked. Isaiah's mother was in jail. Holguin was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Six-month-old Daniel Medina died in 2009 while under the watch of his 22-year-old step-grandfather, Alfredo Luis Davila, who had married the baby's 38-year-old grandmother. Davila said the baby fell, but medical investigators found head injuries inconsistent with a fall and ruled his death a homicide, according to sheriff's and autopsy reports. Though charged in Daniel's death, Davila fled while out on bond and is still a fugitive.
#Several studies have found children living with unrelated adults are more likely to die from child abuse injuries than children living with two biological parents. One study found that risk to be 50 times higher for children living with unrelated adults. Children living only with their mother faced no increased risk, study co-author Patricia Schnitzer, said.
Evolutionary biologists call it the "Cinderella effect," a controversial theory that care-giving animals focus their time and effort on their biological children rather than the offspring of "reproductive rivals," ensuring the parents' own survival and successful reproduction, according to one study on the topic.
Schnitzer hasn't researched why children living with non-biological adults are at greater risk than others, but she expects it's more complicated than the Cinderella effect.
Children killed from abuse and neglect are often under a year old, said Schnitzer, a registered nurse and University of Missouri professor who researches child abuse and neglect. The mother is not with the biological father and maybe has another man as her boyfriend, Schnitzer said.
"The way I think about them is households in chaos, that have a lot of social and financial stressors " she said. "And that puts them at risk of a lot of things, including child abuse."
Not all male caregivers who killed children in southern New Mexico in recent years were unrelated to the children or doubted their paternity. Half were the children's fathers.
They include Michael Cuhen, then 21, who put his son to sleep on a bed without rails and awoke to find the child burned to death against a nearby space heater. And Robert Flores, then 23, who left his 4-month-old daughter Kalynne in a laundry basket with unfolded clothes while he went to the store to buy beer. She suffocated to death. Flores is out of prison pending appeal.
Not the end
Then there is Ordoñez.
After Uriah took his last breaths, the boy's parents laid the baby in his crib and covered him with a blanket. Then they got into their car with their young daughter, drove to the store and bought Smirnoff vodka, drinking and driving around town. They stopped at two other stores to buy beer. Vasquez "just started chugging them, not knowing what else to do," a police report states. They also smoked marijuana.
Vasquez later went to sleep on the couch in their living room. Uriah's body lay in his crib in the bedroom. She didn't want to see it.
She awoke at 6 a.m. to find Ordoñez and Uriah gone.
Ordoñez returned later, smelling of smoke. He told Vasquez to pack clothes; they were leaving for Mexico. Police officers stopped by the house. Vasquez's boss had called to report a domestic dispute after Vasquez had called her, worried. Ordoñez threatened to kill Vasquez and their daughter if she responded to the officers, according to the police report. The police left without making contact with the family.
Ordoñez and Vasquez tossed belongings into dumpsters around the city before stopping at a motel on Picacho Avenue. There, Ordoñez saw police officers and ran. They caught and arrested him, though the reason for his arrest isn't clear in police reports.
No one would know of Uriah's death until Vasquez went to her boss' home after Ordoñez's arrest. Vasquez arrived at the house trembling and crying, saying she thought her baby was dead or injured. Her boss called police to report the child missing.
Medical investigators couldn't determine the cause of Uriah's death because so few pieces of his body remained. They ruled it a homicide based on Ordoñez's and Vasquez's statements and their decision to not seek medical help for the boy.
A judge in 2006 sentenced Ordoñez to 22 years in prison for child abuse resulting in death and Vasquez to 18 years for the same charge. He's scheduled to be released in 2024 with credit for good time served. She's scheduled to be released in 2019.
Despite New Mexico increasing penalties for child killers more than a decade ago in response to deaths like Uriah's, the tide of children dying from abuse and neglect hasn't ended. After Uriah's death in 2004, four more children died under the watch of abusive caregivers over the next five years in Doña Ana County alone.
This article was produced in partnership with New Mexico In Depth. Find NMID online at nmindepth.com. Lindsey Anderson can be reached at 915-546-6345.
http://www.scsun-news.com/silver_city-news/ci_27136071?source=rss
Better child-care options can help combat fatal child abuse New Mexico children die of abuse often at hands of boyfriends or stepparents
By Lindsey Anderson
Las Cruces Sun-News
Posted: 12/14/2014 03:32:52 PM MST
Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series examining solutions to risk factors for fatal child abuse and neglect in New Mexico.
LAS CRUCES
The remnants of 15-month-old Uriah Vasquez Ordoñez's body arrived at the Office of the Medical Investigator in 19 brown paper bags and a Tupperware container in August 2004.
Sixty-five pieces of the toddler's skull. Nine tooth fragments. Fifteen pieces of vertebral bones. Forty-six rib fragments. Twenty-nine pieces of bones from his arms and legs.
That's all investigators could recover from the site where Freddy Ordoñez burned his son's lifeless body in the desert near Oñate High School on July 30, 2004.
The next morning, Ordoñez, whom police had already arrested for killing his son, led investigators to the site where he cremated the boy's body off Pecan Lane and Porter Drive. Once there, Ordoñez dropped to his knees, made the sign of the cross and prayed.
Ordoñez told investigators he spent hours fanning the fire to cremate his son "for the body to be free," one detective's report states. He described throwing his son's ashes in the air.
Investigators combed through the mixed dirt and ash with screens and shovels, recovering the 164 bone fragments.
Expanding aid
Ordoñez said nothing when LCPD detectives asked how Uriah died. They asked again. "It was stupid," he replied.
Detectives learned Ordoñez was watching Uriah earlier in the week while his girlfriend Cecilia Vasquez, the boy's mother, worked at Subway.
Uriah refused to eat. Ordoñez cuffed Uriah on the head, picked him up by his ears and threw him onto a couch, according to police reports. Vasquez told police Ordoñez had tossed Uriah into a bathtub.
Ordoñez was often rough with Uriah and never believed the boy was his, Vasquez told police.
Being under the care of men who lack emotional attachment or caregivers of either gender who don't understand child development increase the risk of fatal child abuse, according to the National Center for Child Death Review.
Uriah is not the only child to die from abuse or neglect in Southern New Mexico in recent years and whose case mirrored those factors.
There was Isaiah Lawrence Jimenez. Armando Wood. Daniel Medina. Alizandra Jasso. Brianna Lopez.
Their mothers were at work, in jail, asleep or running errands while boyfriends, stepparents or other relatives killed them.
New Mexico has consistently had one of the highest rates of fatal child abuse and neglect in the country in recent years. For four of the past five years, New Mexico has been among the eight states with the highest number of per-capita child abuse and neglect deaths.
In 2010 and 2008, New Mexico had the second and third highest rate of deaths in the country, respectively, with 19 children dying from abuse and neglect in each of those years. #The state is also at the bottom of the pack in child well-being, ranking 49th or 50th on a national Kids Count study the past three years.
There's no cure-all for addressing the complex factors that lead to fatal child abuse, but experts say making quality child care more affordable for families would give them better options than leaving children with unreliable caregivers, like Ordoñez.
Yet full-time care for a child age 4 or younger averages $6,000 to $6,800 each year in New Mexico, or about what it costs for a year's undergraduate tuition at New Mexico State University.
For many families struggling financially, the cost often puts such care out of reach, said Veronica C. Garcia, director of the nonprofit advocacy group New Mexico Voices for Children. Advocates like Garcia want the state to make child care affordable by expanding subsidies for low-income families.
Few studies focus on the risk factors for fatal abuse, but the National Center for Child Death Review, which trains state agencies to review child deaths, lists a lack of suitable child care as one of the major factors putting children at risk of dying from abuse or neglect. Reliable child care ensures a trained caregiver is looking after a child while allowing parents to work or run errands, relieving the burden of social isolation.
Many states with consistently low rates of fatal child abuse and neglect and positive rankings in child well-being offer at least some child-care assistance to families earning double the poverty level. The federal poverty level is currently $15,730 for a family of two, or $23,850 for a family of four.
New Hampshire offers child-care assistance for families making up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level. That state ranked fourth in child well-being this year and had a fatal child abuse rate of 0.36 deaths per 1,000 children in 2012. New Mexico's rate was nearly 10 times higher: 3.11 deaths per 1,000 children.
North Dakota, which also ranks low in fatal child abuse and high in child well-being, offers assistance for families making up to nearly three times the federal poverty level.
New Mexico used to offer assistance to families making up to twice the poverty level before state budget cuts in 2010.
Currently, new families can sign up for the program if they earn below 150 percent of the poverty level. If a family receives the subsidy and then their income rises to above 150 percent, they can stay in the program as long as they earn below 200 percent, Children, Youth and Families Department spokesman Henry Varela said.
About 750 families are on a waiting list to receive subsidies, Varela said.
Dangerous caregivers
New Mexico In Depth and the Sun-News examined hundreds of pages of police reports, prison records, autopsy findings and news articles on 15 fatal child abuse and neglect cases in Doña, Luna and Grant counties from 2001 to 2013.
The investigation found many children were fatally injured under the watch of a stepparent, mother's boyfriend, distant relative or a father who doubted whether the child was truly his. Other male caregivers appeared to not understand a child's development, violently punishing young children who wet their pants or shaking babies who wouldn't stop crying.
Two-thirds of the 20 people convicted of killing the children were men. That portion rises even higher if you discount the three women who were convicted of doing nothing to stop others' abuse rather than directly harming their children themselves. Of the adults whose actions directly killed the children, three-quarters were men.
Half of the men in the 15 cases were not related to the children they killed. Two who were fathers, Ordoñez and Andrew Walters, believed the children they killed weren't biologically theirs, according to police reports and then-District Attorney Susana Martinez, whose office prosecuted both cases.
Ordoñez and Vasquez declined requests to speak with NMID and the Sun-News. The details of their and Uriah's story have been gathered from police reports, autopsy findings, prison records and news articles.
After Uriah's death, Vasquez told police Ordoñez never loved the boy. Because she got pregnant with Uriah so quickly — the day Ordoñez was let out of prison — Ordoñez always questioned whether Uriah was his, Vasquez said, according to LCPD reports. Unlike their daughter, the boy didn't look like Ordoñez, she said.
Ordoñez was rough and impatient with Uriah, Vasquez said. She once sent the boy to his grandmother's for a few days, hoping time apart would ease tension. Ordoñez continued to watch Uriah while Vasquez worked.
Garcia, of Voices for Children, wants the state to restore subsidies for all families earning up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level so more parents can have reliable, certified caregivers watch their children. Even that would fall short of what states like North Dakota and New Hampshire offer families.
CYFD will consider seeking "incremental increases" to income eligibility as the budget allows, Varela said.
'Already gone'
There's no way to know if reliable childcare would have saved Uriah, but being under Ordoñez's watch proved fatal for the toddler.
Vasquez, then 21, went to her job at Subway that Tuesday in July 2004, leaving Uriah and their 2-year-old daughter with Ordoñez.
Ordoñez called Vasquez at work. Something was wrong with Uriah, he said. Come home.
Vasquez planned to head right back to work, but she found Uriah "limp." "His eyes were not focusing on anything," she later told investigators, according to police reports. Bruises covered his ears and his neck. A scrape ran up one of his legs. A bump rose from the back of his head. Uriah couldn't hold himself up. He threw up all night.
Vasquez wanted to take Uriah to the doctor, but Ordoñez refused. He reminded Vasquez of another time doctors said Uriah's vomiting was a symptom of a virus that needed to run its course.
By Thursday, Vasquez thought Uriah seemed better. She returned to work. Ordoñez called again, saying the boy was twitching. Vasquez returned home to find Ordoñez giving Uriah CPR.
She urged him to call 911 but he refused, saying they would get in trouble if they took the baby to the hospital with bruises. She tried to call several times but Ordoñez hid the phone.
"He kept telling her that he was already gone, there was nothing that could be done and they couldn't call the cops," the LCPD report says. "She said he told her Uriah was their son and they could bury him the way they wanted to, they didn't need anyone to tell them what to do."
Vasquez's boss later told investigators Ordoñez had previously physically abused Vasquez, according to a police report.
Vasquez lay with Uriah and tried to comfort him as he struggled to breathe. His breaths grew further and further apart, then stopped.
Children at risk
Other deaths of southern New Mexico children illustrate the dangers of leaving kids with unreliable caregivers.
George Trujillo apparently shook his cousin's son, 21-month-old Armando Wood, and lifted him by his chin while watching the boy in 2008, according to news reports. The autopsy found blunt force injuries to the child's head and scrapes on his neck and face. Trujillo was sentenced to three years in prison and has since been released.
Isaiah Lawrence Jimenez wouldn't stop crying one night in 2009, according to sheriff's reports. His aunt's boyfriend, Daniel Holguin, tossed him in the air, caught him by a leg, spanked him and suffocated him, Holguin's daughter later told investigators. Holguin was watching the 4-month-old while his girlfriend worked. Isaiah's mother was in jail. Holguin was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Six-month-old Daniel Medina died in 2009 while under the watch of his 22-year-old step-grandfather, Alfredo Luis Davila, who had married the baby's 38-year-old grandmother. Davila said the baby fell, but medical investigators found head injuries inconsistent with a fall and ruled his death a homicide, according to sheriff's and autopsy reports. Though charged in Daniel's death, Davila fled while out on bond and is still a fugitive.
#Several studies have found children living with unrelated adults are more likely to die from child abuse injuries than children living with two biological parents. One study found that risk to be 50 times higher for children living with unrelated adults. Children living only with their mother faced no increased risk, study co-author Patricia Schnitzer, said.
Evolutionary biologists call it the "Cinderella effect," a controversial theory that care-giving animals focus their time and effort on their biological children rather than the offspring of "reproductive rivals," ensuring the parents' own survival and successful reproduction, according to one study on the topic.
Schnitzer hasn't researched why children living with non-biological adults are at greater risk than others, but she expects it's more complicated than the Cinderella effect.
Children killed from abuse and neglect are often under a year old, said Schnitzer, a registered nurse and University of Missouri professor who researches child abuse and neglect. The mother is not with the biological father and maybe has another man as her boyfriend, Schnitzer said.
"The way I think about them is households in chaos, that have a lot of social and financial stressors " she said. "And that puts them at risk of a lot of things, including child abuse."
Not all male caregivers who killed children in southern New Mexico in recent years were unrelated to the children or doubted their paternity. Half were the children's fathers.
They include Michael Cuhen, then 21, who put his son to sleep on a bed without rails and awoke to find the child burned to death against a nearby space heater. And Robert Flores, then 23, who left his 4-month-old daughter Kalynne in a laundry basket with unfolded clothes while he went to the store to buy beer. She suffocated to death. Flores is out of prison pending appeal.
Not the end
Then there is Ordoñez.
After Uriah took his last breaths, the boy's parents laid the baby in his crib and covered him with a blanket. Then they got into their car with their young daughter, drove to the store and bought Smirnoff vodka, drinking and driving around town. They stopped at two other stores to buy beer. Vasquez "just started chugging them, not knowing what else to do," a police report states. They also smoked marijuana.
Vasquez later went to sleep on the couch in their living room. Uriah's body lay in his crib in the bedroom. She didn't want to see it.
She awoke at 6 a.m. to find Ordoñez and Uriah gone.
Ordoñez returned later, smelling of smoke. He told Vasquez to pack clothes; they were leaving for Mexico. Police officers stopped by the house. Vasquez's boss had called to report a domestic dispute after Vasquez had called her, worried. Ordoñez threatened to kill Vasquez and their daughter if she responded to the officers, according to the police report. The police left without making contact with the family.
Ordoñez and Vasquez tossed belongings into dumpsters around the city before stopping at a motel on Picacho Avenue. There, Ordoñez saw police officers and ran. They caught and arrested him, though the reason for his arrest isn't clear in police reports.
No one would know of Uriah's death until Vasquez went to her boss' home after Ordoñez's arrest. Vasquez arrived at the house trembling and crying, saying she thought her baby was dead or injured. Her boss called police to report the child missing.
Medical investigators couldn't determine the cause of Uriah's death because so few pieces of his body remained. They ruled it a homicide based on Ordoñez's and Vasquez's statements and their decision to not seek medical help for the boy.
A judge in 2006 sentenced Ordoñez to 22 years in prison for child abuse resulting in death and Vasquez to 18 years for the same charge. He's scheduled to be released in 2024 with credit for good time served. She's scheduled to be released in 2019.
Despite New Mexico increasing penalties for child killers more than a decade ago in response to deaths like Uriah's, the tide of children dying from abuse and neglect hasn't ended. After Uriah's death in 2004, four more children died under the watch of abusive caregivers over the next five years in Doña Ana County alone.
This article was produced in partnership with New Mexico In Depth. Find NMID online at nmindepth.com. Lindsey Anderson can be reached at 915-546-6345.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Dad arrested for swimming naked with 1-year-old daughter in public and resisting arrest; "took" baby from mother two weeks ago (Acoma, New Mexico)
What do you mean that dad MICHAEL LEE "took" the 1-year-old girl from her mother two weeks ago? Did he abduct her? Then say so. So then Daddy is caught acting perv-y, and it turns out he stole a truck, and he resists arrest?
Lots of weird sh** going on here. Somehow I think there is lot more here than meets the surface.
http://krqe.com/2014/10/27/father-accused-of-swimming-naked-with-baby-in-public/
Father accused of swimming naked with baby in public
By KRQE Staff Published: October 27, 2014, 11:14 am | Updated: October 27, 2014, 11:39 am
ACOMA, N.M. (KRQE) – A man accused of swimming naked in a hotel pool with his 1-year-old daughter has been arrested.
New Mexico State Police officers say they responded to a call at the Sky Casino in Acoma, and upon arrival made contact with Michale Lee, 35, of La Palma Calif., who had allegedly taken the girl from her mother in Mexico two weeks prior.
Police say Lee fled to California and stole a semi-truck in Oceanside, then drove to New Mexico.
Lee did not cooperate with officers at the hotel, police say, but he was eventually taken into custody. His child taken by the Children, Youth and Families Department.
Police say Lee has been charged with child abuse, receiving or transferring a stolen vehicle, resisting an officer and indecent exposure.
Lots of weird sh** going on here. Somehow I think there is lot more here than meets the surface.
http://krqe.com/2014/10/27/father-accused-of-swimming-naked-with-baby-in-public/
Father accused of swimming naked with baby in public
By KRQE Staff Published: October 27, 2014, 11:14 am | Updated: October 27, 2014, 11:39 am
ACOMA, N.M. (KRQE) – A man accused of swimming naked in a hotel pool with his 1-year-old daughter has been arrested.
New Mexico State Police officers say they responded to a call at the Sky Casino in Acoma, and upon arrival made contact with Michale Lee, 35, of La Palma Calif., who had allegedly taken the girl from her mother in Mexico two weeks prior.
Police say Lee fled to California and stole a semi-truck in Oceanside, then drove to New Mexico.
Lee did not cooperate with officers at the hotel, police say, but he was eventually taken into custody. His child taken by the Children, Youth and Families Department.
Police say Lee has been charged with child abuse, receiving or transferring a stolen vehicle, resisting an officer and indecent exposure.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Dad arrested for abusing 3-year-old daughter during his custody time; girl had bruised swollen face and bloody nose (Farmington, New Mexico)
Wonder how many times the kids have come back bruised and bloodied after "parenting time" with Daddy? I'm guessing quite a few.
The reporter states that the couple have been in a "child-custody battle" since 2000. Fourteen long years.
The language suggests that it's a "dispute" with both parties battling it out. Actually, "child-custody battles" that last that long are typically not just spiteful people. More often than not, they involve a protective parent trying to keep the kids safe from an abuser. Given that Daddy has no explanation for the child's injuries, that appears to be the case here.
Dad is identified as DON MARTINEZ.
http://www.abqjournal.com/481535/news/san-juan-county-adult-detention-center-guard-arrested-on-suspicion-of-child-abuse.html
San Juan County Adult Detention Center guard arrested on suspicion of child abuse
By Steve Garrison / The Daily Times
PUBLISHED: Friday, October 17, 2014 at 8:42 am
FARMINGTON — A 43-year-old guard at the San Juan County Adult Detention Center has been arrested for allegedly slapping his 3-year-old daughter. The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office has referred child abuse charges against Aztec resident Don Martinez to the district attorney’s office, according to a press release from the sheriff’s office.
Deputies were dispatched Wednesday morning to meet with the mother of Martinez’s children, the release states. The mother told deputies her daughter returned from her father’s home on Monday with a bloody nose and a bruised, swollen cheek.
Detectives saw the injuries and scheduled a forensic interview with the girl, the release states.
The girl told investigators her half-brother opened some of their father’s Star Wars collectible toys, and her father became enraged and slapped her, according to the release.
Martinez denied causing the injuries but had no explanation for how they occurred, the release states.
According to court records, Martinez has been involved in a child-custody battle with his wife since 2000.
The reporter states that the couple have been in a "child-custody battle" since 2000. Fourteen long years.
The language suggests that it's a "dispute" with both parties battling it out. Actually, "child-custody battles" that last that long are typically not just spiteful people. More often than not, they involve a protective parent trying to keep the kids safe from an abuser. Given that Daddy has no explanation for the child's injuries, that appears to be the case here.
Dad is identified as DON MARTINEZ.
http://www.abqjournal.com/481535/news/san-juan-county-adult-detention-center-guard-arrested-on-suspicion-of-child-abuse.html
San Juan County Adult Detention Center guard arrested on suspicion of child abuse
By Steve Garrison / The Daily Times
PUBLISHED: Friday, October 17, 2014 at 8:42 am
FARMINGTON — A 43-year-old guard at the San Juan County Adult Detention Center has been arrested for allegedly slapping his 3-year-old daughter. The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office has referred child abuse charges against Aztec resident Don Martinez to the district attorney’s office, according to a press release from the sheriff’s office.
Deputies were dispatched Wednesday morning to meet with the mother of Martinez’s children, the release states. The mother told deputies her daughter returned from her father’s home on Monday with a bloody nose and a bruised, swollen cheek.
Detectives saw the injuries and scheduled a forensic interview with the girl, the release states.
The girl told investigators her half-brother opened some of their father’s Star Wars collectible toys, and her father became enraged and slapped her, according to the release.
Martinez denied causing the injuries but had no explanation for how they occurred, the release states.
According to court records, Martinez has been involved in a child-custody battle with his wife since 2000.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Dad accused of using cattle prod on 9-year-old daughter (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Notice that the mother has lost custody though there is no suggestion in this article that she used a cattle prod on any of the children, approved of its usage on the children, or even knew of its usage on the children. Yet another example of how mothers are punished and made responsible for the crimes of fathers. Dad is identified as ELDEN C. BEGAY.
http://www.abqjournal.com/468329/abqnewsseeker/man-accused-of-using-cattle-prod-on-9-year-old-daughter.html
Man accused of using cattle prod on 9-year-old daughter
ABQnews Seeker
By Rosalie Rayburn / Journal Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: Thursday, September 25, 2014 at 8:27 pm
Albuquerque police have arrested a man whose young daughters say he shocked or threatened them and their small dogs with a device he used on horses and bulls and which the manufacturers say is never supposed to be used on humans.
Elden C. Begay faces a charge of child abuse without great bodily harm and a felony charge of extreme cruelty to animals, according to a criminal complaint.
One of the girls, aged 9, told a staffer at Kirtland Elementary School that her father woke her on Aug. 20 with what she called a “horse shocking thing” when she failed to get up, and complained that it still hurt.
A report filed by the state Children, Youth and Families Department identified the father as Elden Begay. An officer with the police Crimes Against Children Unit reviewed the report and interviewed the girl at the school.
The girl told the officer that her father shocked her on the torso after she begged him not to. The girl showed the area where she had been shocked and said it “hurts so freaking bad”, although there was no mark.
Based on the girl’s description the officer thought the device might be a cattle prod.
The officer then talked to the girl’s siblings, aged 8 years and 6 years old, who said they’d seen Begay use the device on their sister. They said he also used it to scare them and other children in the home.
The 8-year-old told the officer that her father and mother used the device on “uncooperative bulls” in Gallup.
A 13-year old sibling told the officer that their father had also shocked the family’s three dogs. “They’re like very tiny … they just cry,” one of the girls said in an interview, according to the complaint.
After speaking with the girls at the school, the officer signed an emergency order placing all of the children in the family into the temporary custody of CYFD. The order included four more he found at the family home in Southeast Albuquerque.
Executing a search warrant, police searched the home on Aug. 22 and found a “Hot Shot” electric livestock prod in the garage. The device was marked with warnings saying “use on livestock only” and “keep away from children.”
The officer contacted the device manufacturer, Miller Manufacturing who informed him that it generates about 9,000 volts. A Miller Manufacturing representative told the officer by email that “Hot Shot” prods should “never be used on a human,” the complaint said.
http://www.abqjournal.com/468329/abqnewsseeker/man-accused-of-using-cattle-prod-on-9-year-old-daughter.html
Man accused of using cattle prod on 9-year-old daughter
ABQnews Seeker
By Rosalie Rayburn / Journal Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: Thursday, September 25, 2014 at 8:27 pm
Albuquerque police have arrested a man whose young daughters say he shocked or threatened them and their small dogs with a device he used on horses and bulls and which the manufacturers say is never supposed to be used on humans.
Elden C. Begay faces a charge of child abuse without great bodily harm and a felony charge of extreme cruelty to animals, according to a criminal complaint.
One of the girls, aged 9, told a staffer at Kirtland Elementary School that her father woke her on Aug. 20 with what she called a “horse shocking thing” when she failed to get up, and complained that it still hurt.
A report filed by the state Children, Youth and Families Department identified the father as Elden Begay. An officer with the police Crimes Against Children Unit reviewed the report and interviewed the girl at the school.
The girl told the officer that her father shocked her on the torso after she begged him not to. The girl showed the area where she had been shocked and said it “hurts so freaking bad”, although there was no mark.
Based on the girl’s description the officer thought the device might be a cattle prod.
The officer then talked to the girl’s siblings, aged 8 years and 6 years old, who said they’d seen Begay use the device on their sister. They said he also used it to scare them and other children in the home.
The 8-year-old told the officer that her father and mother used the device on “uncooperative bulls” in Gallup.
A 13-year old sibling told the officer that their father had also shocked the family’s three dogs. “They’re like very tiny … they just cry,” one of the girls said in an interview, according to the complaint.
After speaking with the girls at the school, the officer signed an emergency order placing all of the children in the family into the temporary custody of CYFD. The order included four more he found at the family home in Southeast Albuquerque.
Executing a search warrant, police searched the home on Aug. 22 and found a “Hot Shot” electric livestock prod in the garage. The device was marked with warnings saying “use on livestock only” and “keep away from children.”
The officer contacted the device manufacturer, Miller Manufacturing who informed him that it generates about 9,000 volts. A Miller Manufacturing representative told the officer by email that “Hot Shot” prods should “never be used on a human,” the complaint said.
Saturday, July 26, 2014
"Caretaking" dad beats 2-month-old son while mom is at work (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Dad RODRIGO NAVARRO JR. is a f***ing idiot. That is all.
http://www.abqjournal.com/435365/abqnewsseeker/father-accused-of-beating-infant-son-with-clothes-hanger.html
Father accused of beating infant son with clothes hanger
ABQnews Seeker
By Patrick Lohmann / Journal Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: Friday, July 25, 2014 at 9:35 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Albuquerque police have arrested the father of a 2-month-old boy who allegedly beat him with his hand and a clothes hanger out of frustration that the infant would not stop crying.
Police said Rodrigo Navarro Jr. sent text messages to the baby’s mother while she was at work, including one that said “I’ll waste this (racial epithet)” and “I can’t calm him down”.
The mother arrived after getting a ride home from a friend after work to find Navarro on the couch and the boy lying facedown on the bed, and she took the infant to the University of New Mexico Hospital for treatment as soon as she saw his injuries, according to police.
The baby had extensive swelling and dark bruising covering the left side of his face, bruising inside his left ear, red marks on his chest and lower back, and bruising on his left hand, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in Metropolitan Court.
Navarro, 27, told police that he was frustrated that the baby would not stop crying and that he had been drinking malt liquor.
The child was in stable condition with extensive swelling and bruising, according to the complaint.
Navarro is facing charges of child abuse without great bodily harm. He’s being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center without bail.
http://www.abqjournal.com/435365/abqnewsseeker/father-accused-of-beating-infant-son-with-clothes-hanger.html
Father accused of beating infant son with clothes hanger
ABQnews Seeker
By Patrick Lohmann / Journal Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: Friday, July 25, 2014 at 9:35 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Albuquerque police have arrested the father of a 2-month-old boy who allegedly beat him with his hand and a clothes hanger out of frustration that the infant would not stop crying.
Police said Rodrigo Navarro Jr. sent text messages to the baby’s mother while she was at work, including one that said “I’ll waste this (racial epithet)” and “I can’t calm him down”.
The mother arrived after getting a ride home from a friend after work to find Navarro on the couch and the boy lying facedown on the bed, and she took the infant to the University of New Mexico Hospital for treatment as soon as she saw his injuries, according to police.
The baby had extensive swelling and dark bruising covering the left side of his face, bruising inside his left ear, red marks on his chest and lower back, and bruising on his left hand, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in Metropolitan Court.
Navarro, 27, told police that he was frustrated that the baby would not stop crying and that he had been drinking malt liquor.
The child was in stable condition with extensive swelling and bruising, according to the complaint.
Navarro is facing charges of child abuse without great bodily harm. He’s being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center without bail.
Dad brings assault rifle, 9-month-old son with signs of neglect into fast food restaurant; where is the baby's mother? (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Daddy remembers to bring his assault rifle, but can't remember to change the baby's diaper or, god forbid, feed him.
Dad is identified as COLIN DECKER.
Notice that the baby is now in CPS care. What happened to the mother of this child?
http://www.abqjournal.com/435904/abqnewsseeker/men-arrested-after-bringing-assault-rifle-infant-to-late-night-fast-food-restaurant.html
Men arrested after bringing assault rifle, infant to fast food restaurant
ABQnews Seeker By Patrick Lohmann / Journal Staff Writer
UPDATED: Saturday, July 26, 2014 at 3:42 pm
PUBLISHED: Saturday, July 26, 2014 at 12:35 pm
Albuquerque police have arrested two men for allegedly endangering an infant as they traveled in their Mustang convertible to a fast food joint armed with an assault rifle, all while carrying an 8-month-old boy who police said appeared to have been neglected.
Officers in Northeast Albuquerque were sent to a Jack in the Box on the 5000 block of Montgomery around 5 a.m. Saturday morning to question two men, who appeared to be drunk, as they tried to order food at the drive through, according to Albuquerque police. The store’s manager called police to report that the driver had an assault rifle on his lap and that his passenger was holding the infant.
The infant had an “extremely soiled diaper” and a T-shirt too small for the weather, said APD spokesman Simon Drobik. The boy’s father said he could not remember the last time the baby had been fed.
“Hollywood couldn’t come up with this story,” Drobik said. “What it really comes down to is the safety of the child.”
The father, 27-year-old Colin Decker, and driver, 28-year-old Mark Richard Cropper, were arrested on a charge of child endangerment, police said. Officers found a black handgun in the passenger seat and two other guns in their search of the vehicle, Drobik said.
Drobik said the two men were very confrontational with police, including one who refused to provide his address, and it’s unclear why the men brought the guns. Neither appears to have much of a criminal history, according to online state court records.
As officers were at the scene, they pooled their money to pay for food, formula, clothing and diapers for the child, Drobik said, before taking him to the police substation for a diaper change and a meal. The state Children, Youth and Families Department then took custody of the child, Drobik said.
“They’re (the officers) all parents, and the parental instincts kicked in,” he said.
Cropper and Decker are being held at the county jail on $15,000 cash or surety bonds. They’re both facing charges relating to child abuse.
Dad is identified as COLIN DECKER.
Notice that the baby is now in CPS care. What happened to the mother of this child?
http://www.abqjournal.com/435904/abqnewsseeker/men-arrested-after-bringing-assault-rifle-infant-to-late-night-fast-food-restaurant.html
Men arrested after bringing assault rifle, infant to fast food restaurant
ABQnews Seeker By Patrick Lohmann / Journal Staff Writer
UPDATED: Saturday, July 26, 2014 at 3:42 pm
PUBLISHED: Saturday, July 26, 2014 at 12:35 pm
Albuquerque police have arrested two men for allegedly endangering an infant as they traveled in their Mustang convertible to a fast food joint armed with an assault rifle, all while carrying an 8-month-old boy who police said appeared to have been neglected.
Officers in Northeast Albuquerque were sent to a Jack in the Box on the 5000 block of Montgomery around 5 a.m. Saturday morning to question two men, who appeared to be drunk, as they tried to order food at the drive through, according to Albuquerque police. The store’s manager called police to report that the driver had an assault rifle on his lap and that his passenger was holding the infant.
The infant had an “extremely soiled diaper” and a T-shirt too small for the weather, said APD spokesman Simon Drobik. The boy’s father said he could not remember the last time the baby had been fed.
“Hollywood couldn’t come up with this story,” Drobik said. “What it really comes down to is the safety of the child.”
The father, 27-year-old Colin Decker, and driver, 28-year-old Mark Richard Cropper, were arrested on a charge of child endangerment, police said. Officers found a black handgun in the passenger seat and two other guns in their search of the vehicle, Drobik said.
Drobik said the two men were very confrontational with police, including one who refused to provide his address, and it’s unclear why the men brought the guns. Neither appears to have much of a criminal history, according to online state court records.
As officers were at the scene, they pooled their money to pay for food, formula, clothing and diapers for the child, Drobik said, before taking him to the police substation for a diaper change and a meal. The state Children, Youth and Families Department then took custody of the child, Drobik said.
“They’re (the officers) all parents, and the parental instincts kicked in,” he said.
Cropper and Decker are being held at the county jail on $15,000 cash or surety bonds. They’re both facing charges relating to child abuse.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Dad faces battery, child abuse charges after assaulting teen daughter and her mother (Las Cruces, New Mexico)
Dad is identified as MICHAEL A. SUAZO, JR.
http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/las-cruces-father-faces-battery-child-abuse-charges-after-drunken-incident-4894.shtml#.U3fRI9fD9Yc
Las Cruces father faces battery, child abuse charges after drunken incident
Updated: Friday, May 16 2014, 04:27 PM MDT
By: Jesse Martinez
LAS CRUCES, N.M. – A Las Cruces man accused of shoving his wife and daughter to the floor while he was drunk was arrested Wednesday night.
Police said Michael A. Suazo Jr. spent much of Wednesday drinking alcohol and got into an argument with his wife that afternoon.
The argument escalated to the point where Suazo, 41, allegedly grabbed his wife and threw her down on a couch, police said.
Detectives learned the couple’s teenage daughter tired to intervene, but was shoved to the ground by Suazo and she hit her back on a wooden staircase, police said.
Afterward the teen drove her father to the store and Suazo drove them back to their home to find officers at the scene, police said.
The teen got out of the vehicle; Suazo drove away and was eventually stopped by police.
Officers said they detected a strong alcohol odor in Suazo’s breath when he was pulled over. Suazo was charged with battery against a household member and intentional child abuse. He also faces charges of driving with a suspended or revoked license, aggravated driving under the influence and resisting or evading arrest.
He was booked into the county jail with bail set at $7,500.
http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/las-cruces-father-faces-battery-child-abuse-charges-after-drunken-incident-4894.shtml#.U3fRI9fD9Yc
Las Cruces father faces battery, child abuse charges after drunken incident
Updated: Friday, May 16 2014, 04:27 PM MDT
By: Jesse Martinez
LAS CRUCES, N.M. – A Las Cruces man accused of shoving his wife and daughter to the floor while he was drunk was arrested Wednesday night.
Police said Michael A. Suazo Jr. spent much of Wednesday drinking alcohol and got into an argument with his wife that afternoon.
The argument escalated to the point where Suazo, 41, allegedly grabbed his wife and threw her down on a couch, police said.
Detectives learned the couple’s teenage daughter tired to intervene, but was shoved to the ground by Suazo and she hit her back on a wooden staircase, police said.
Afterward the teen drove her father to the store and Suazo drove them back to their home to find officers at the scene, police said.
The teen got out of the vehicle; Suazo drove away and was eventually stopped by police.
Officers said they detected a strong alcohol odor in Suazo’s breath when he was pulled over. Suazo was charged with battery against a household member and intentional child abuse. He also faces charges of driving with a suspended or revoked license, aggravated driving under the influence and resisting or evading arrest.
He was booked into the county jail with bail set at $7,500.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Charges may be upgraded against dad after 3-month-old daughter dies from abuse (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Dad is identified as STEFON MILLER.
http://krqe.com/2014/05/11/baby-in-suspected-child-abuse-case-dies/
Baby in suspected child abuse case dies
By Kayla Ayres
Published: Sunday, May 11, 2014, 3:13 pm
ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – The baby in a suspected child abuse case has died and that could up the charges against her father.
Albuquerque police say on April 16, 22-year-old Stefon Miller called 911 saying the 3-month-old was unconscious and having trouble breathing.
Miller told officers he had been playing with the baby by tossing her in the air and catching her. Police say he later admitted to shaking her out of frustration.
Doctors say she suffered a brain bleed.
Miller is still in jail. He was charged with child abuse. The district attorney’s office will now decide if the charges will be upgraded.
http://krqe.com/2014/05/11/baby-in-suspected-child-abuse-case-dies/
Baby in suspected child abuse case dies
By Kayla Ayres
Published: Sunday, May 11, 2014, 3:13 pm
ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – The baby in a suspected child abuse case has died and that could up the charges against her father.
Albuquerque police say on April 16, 22-year-old Stefon Miller called 911 saying the 3-month-old was unconscious and having trouble breathing.
Miller told officers he had been playing with the baby by tossing her in the air and catching her. Police say he later admitted to shaking her out of frustration.
Doctors say she suffered a brain bleed.
Miller is still in jail. He was charged with child abuse. The district attorney’s office will now decide if the charges will be upgraded.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Dad arrested for abusing 3-month-old daughter (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Dad is identified as STEFON MILLER. No mention of the mother.
http://www.koat.com/news/police-shaken-3monthold-has-brain-bleed/25536680
Police: Shaken 3-month-old has brain bleed
Stefon Miller arrested, charged in the case
UPDATED 5:49 PM MDT Apr 17, 2014
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Albuquerque police said they charged a 22-year-old man with child abuse resulting in great bodily harm after a 3-month-old in his care had to undergo surgery for a brain bleed.
According to the criminal complaint, police went to a home in the 700 block of Halter Drive SW Tuesday after someone reported a baby was in distress.
The infant was rushed to University of New Mexico Hospital where she underwent surgery to repair a brain bleed. She is in critical condition.
Police said Stefon Miller originally told officers the child was injured while he was tossing her up in the air and catching her in a playful manner. On Wednesday, police said Miller admitted to shaking the baby girl out of frustration.
Miller was arrested and charged with child abuse resulting in great bodily harm.
http://www.koat.com/news/police-shaken-3monthold-has-brain-bleed/25536680
Police: Shaken 3-month-old has brain bleed
Stefon Miller arrested, charged in the case
UPDATED 5:49 PM MDT Apr 17, 2014
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Albuquerque police said they charged a 22-year-old man with child abuse resulting in great bodily harm after a 3-month-old in his care had to undergo surgery for a brain bleed.
According to the criminal complaint, police went to a home in the 700 block of Halter Drive SW Tuesday after someone reported a baby was in distress.
The infant was rushed to University of New Mexico Hospital where she underwent surgery to repair a brain bleed. She is in critical condition.
Police said Stefon Miller originally told officers the child was injured while he was tossing her up in the air and catching her in a playful manner. On Wednesday, police said Miller admitted to shaking the baby girl out of frustration.
Miller was arrested and charged with child abuse resulting in great bodily harm.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Police: Dad strangled 13-year-old son over potato chips (Espanola, New Mexico)
Dad's defense is straight out of the father's rights handbook. My ex-wife lied! She's turned my son against me through Parental Alienation Syndrome! WAA!
Of course, this ignores that the police would not have arrested him for strangling the boy if there were not evidence on the boy's neck of strangulation. Not a "scratch" the boy inflicted on himself, all in some paranoid plot to frame Daddy.
But that's what the FR people count on. Don't pay attention to the actual facts. Listen to my spin.
Dad is identified as PHILLIP CHACONE.
http://www.koat.com/news/new-mexico/police-espanola-city-councilor-abused-son-over-potato-chips/24911924
Police: Espanola city councilor abused son over potato chips
Phillip Chacon denies allegations, says son and ex-wife lied to police
UPDATED 8:01 AM MDT Mar 11, 2014
ESPANOLA, N.M. —On Friday, Phillip Chacon was sworn in as a new member on the Espanola City Council. Two days later, he was arrested after police say he strangled his 13-year-old son.
Chacon's son told investigators his father got angry because he took a bag of potato chips away from his dad. The boy told police Chacon then grabbed him by the collar and choked him, leaving red marks on his neck. The teen told detectives his father also punched him in the leg, leaving a bruise.
Espanola police arrested Chacon Sunday and charged him with abandonment or abuse of a child. Chacon spent the night at the Rio Arriba County Detention Center.
Chacon denies these allegations, saying he doesn't recall even eating a bag of chips. In fact, Chacon says his son scratched his own neck and his ex-wife made up the abuse allegations to get back at him.
"His mom has a history of trying to turn him against me," explained Chacon. "That's not by any means close to what happened. I mean, nothing happened. It was news to me when I got woken up by city police."
But, the Espanola police chief says the facts of his investigation prove differently.
"The preliminary information that we have right now does not support what his response is," said Chief Eric Garcia. "The facts of the case indicate clearly that there was some kind of abuse going on."
Chacon says he works at a high-security-clearance job at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Lab officials say a person by Chacon's name works there, but weren't able to confirm if it's the same person. Chacon has other young children.
Of course, this ignores that the police would not have arrested him for strangling the boy if there were not evidence on the boy's neck of strangulation. Not a "scratch" the boy inflicted on himself, all in some paranoid plot to frame Daddy.
But that's what the FR people count on. Don't pay attention to the actual facts. Listen to my spin.
Dad is identified as PHILLIP CHACONE.
http://www.koat.com/news/new-mexico/police-espanola-city-councilor-abused-son-over-potato-chips/24911924
Police: Espanola city councilor abused son over potato chips
Phillip Chacon denies allegations, says son and ex-wife lied to police
UPDATED 8:01 AM MDT Mar 11, 2014
ESPANOLA, N.M. —On Friday, Phillip Chacon was sworn in as a new member on the Espanola City Council. Two days later, he was arrested after police say he strangled his 13-year-old son.
Chacon's son told investigators his father got angry because he took a bag of potato chips away from his dad. The boy told police Chacon then grabbed him by the collar and choked him, leaving red marks on his neck. The teen told detectives his father also punched him in the leg, leaving a bruise.
Espanola police arrested Chacon Sunday and charged him with abandonment or abuse of a child. Chacon spent the night at the Rio Arriba County Detention Center.
Chacon denies these allegations, saying he doesn't recall even eating a bag of chips. In fact, Chacon says his son scratched his own neck and his ex-wife made up the abuse allegations to get back at him.
"His mom has a history of trying to turn him against me," explained Chacon. "That's not by any means close to what happened. I mean, nothing happened. It was news to me when I got woken up by city police."
But, the Espanola police chief says the facts of his investigation prove differently.
"The preliminary information that we have right now does not support what his response is," said Chief Eric Garcia. "The facts of the case indicate clearly that there was some kind of abuse going on."
Chacon says he works at a high-security-clearance job at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Lab officials say a person by Chacon's name works there, but weren't able to confirm if it's the same person. Chacon has other young children.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Dad arrested for biting 3-year-old son, "scuffling" with police (Santa Fe, New Mexico)
Where is the mother???
Notice that there is no mention of the mother anywhere in the story. She's not at the restaurant, she's not in the home. She's not anywhere.
So is this a custodial father? This kind of dad is actually very successful at getting custody: basically (what looks like) a violent yet "functional" alcoholic who is also a high-powered attorney. Any woman who associated with a man like that is basically doomed.
The only reason this guy is going to get dinged is for "scuffling" with the police. Otherwise, you can almost bet this incident would have been swept under the rug.
Dad is identified as GEOFFREY SCOVIL.
http://www.krqe.com/news/crime/police-attorney-bit-3-year-old-son
Police: Attorney bit 3-year-old son
Albuquerque lawyer in trouble with Santa Fe PD
By Cole Miller
Updated: Monday, September 30, 2013, 7:29 AM MDT
Published: Monday, September 30, 2013, 7:07 AM MDT
SANTA FE (KRQE) - An Albuquerque attorney is facing a slew of charges after his 3-year-old son confesses to police.
Santa Fe police say Geoffrey Scovil had a busy night Saturday night, accused of something bizarre, biting his son. What he’s accused of doing when officers arrived got him in even more trouble.
Witnesses at a Santa Fe restaurant called police after they saw Scovil and his 3-year-old son with injuries to their faces.
Shortly after, police say they found Scovil at a home.
“The child came out and had a bite mark on his cheek at which time officers became suspicious and asked a couple of questions,” Celina Westervelt with Santa Fe police said.
Officers then asked Scovil to step outside.
“They told him at that point they wanted to know about the injuries and the man became very confrontational,” Westervelt said.
Police say he didn't listen to officers and that's when things turned physical.
“The man got into a little bit of a scuffle and he refused to cooperate with the investigation.”
Scovil told police his son threw a cue ball at his head before they left the restaurant.
The young boy then told police what happened to him.
“The child was interviewed and told police his father had bitten him on the cheek,” Westervelt said.
Online records show he posted a $10,000 bond.
Scovil faces multiple charges, including child abuse, assault on a police officer and obstruction.
CYFD is doing its own investigation into the case. Witnesses told police that Scovil had been drinking at the restaurant.
Notice that there is no mention of the mother anywhere in the story. She's not at the restaurant, she's not in the home. She's not anywhere.
So is this a custodial father? This kind of dad is actually very successful at getting custody: basically (what looks like) a violent yet "functional" alcoholic who is also a high-powered attorney. Any woman who associated with a man like that is basically doomed.
The only reason this guy is going to get dinged is for "scuffling" with the police. Otherwise, you can almost bet this incident would have been swept under the rug.
Dad is identified as GEOFFREY SCOVIL.
http://www.krqe.com/news/crime/police-attorney-bit-3-year-old-son
Police: Attorney bit 3-year-old son
Albuquerque lawyer in trouble with Santa Fe PD
By Cole Miller
Updated: Monday, September 30, 2013, 7:29 AM MDT
Published: Monday, September 30, 2013, 7:07 AM MDT
SANTA FE (KRQE) - An Albuquerque attorney is facing a slew of charges after his 3-year-old son confesses to police.
Santa Fe police say Geoffrey Scovil had a busy night Saturday night, accused of something bizarre, biting his son. What he’s accused of doing when officers arrived got him in even more trouble.
Witnesses at a Santa Fe restaurant called police after they saw Scovil and his 3-year-old son with injuries to their faces.
Shortly after, police say they found Scovil at a home.
“The child came out and had a bite mark on his cheek at which time officers became suspicious and asked a couple of questions,” Celina Westervelt with Santa Fe police said.
Officers then asked Scovil to step outside.
“They told him at that point they wanted to know about the injuries and the man became very confrontational,” Westervelt said.
Police say he didn't listen to officers and that's when things turned physical.
“The man got into a little bit of a scuffle and he refused to cooperate with the investigation.”
Scovil told police his son threw a cue ball at his head before they left the restaurant.
The young boy then told police what happened to him.
“The child was interviewed and told police his father had bitten him on the cheek,” Westervelt said.
Online records show he posted a $10,000 bond.
Scovil faces multiple charges, including child abuse, assault on a police officer and obstruction.
CYFD is doing its own investigation into the case. Witnesses told police that Scovil had been drinking at the restaurant.
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