When first responders arrived at the Los Angeles home where 10-year-old Anthony Avalos had allegedly been tortured and abused for weeks before his death, they found a gaunt child with “sunken eyes” who “looked dead,” they testified Monday during a murder trial against his mom and her boyfriend.
Kareem Ernesto Leiva, a 37-year-old illegal immigrant and MS-13 member, and his American girlfriend Heather Maxine Barron, 33, are both charged with murder and torture in the death of Anthony as well as child abuse against two other children in the home.
Prosecutors allege the boy had been beaten, starved, forced to kneel on rice, force-fed, whipped and more in a home where he was allegedly subjected to “extreme physical pain and suffering” by the time his mother called 911 on June 20, 2018, to report her son was unconscious.
Despite her Anthony’s condition, Barron alleged appeared “kind of calm” when first responders arrived, testified Diane Ravago, a former EMT who is now a paramedic, FOX Los Angeles reported Monday.
CALIFORNIA MS-13 MEMBER ACCUSED OF 10-YEAR-OLD’S TORTURE AND MURDER IS IN US ILLEGALLY: SOURCE
CALIFORNIA SEEKS DEATH PENALTY IN ALLEGED TORTURE KILLING OF ANTHONY AVALOS
Anthony “looked like a cancer patient,” she continued, and when Deputy District Attorney Saeed Teymouri asked if he appeared to be alive when she arrived on scene, she said “not at all.”
Ronald Watts, a former Los Angeles firefighter who is now retired, also took the stand – reportedly telling the court he was “skeptical” of the parent’s version of events and that the scene still troubled him today.
“His eyes were sunken,” he said. “You could count his ribs. His knees had sores on them. He looked dead.”
Police arrived and found the boy not breathing and covered in bruises and abrasions. He also had circular burn marks on his stomach. After he was transported to a hospital, doctors noted he appeared “severely malnourished and dehydrated.”Â
The pronounced him dead the next morning.
The former…
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