Heather Barron, mother of Anthony Avalos, and her boyfriend Kareem Leiva were found guilty of the 10-year-old’s death in 2018. Shortly before his death, the little boy “said he liked boys,” according to Brandon Nichols, then deputy director of the Department of Children and Family Services.
The couple was charged with first degree murder, in addition to torture and two counts of child abuse related to the brothers of Anthony Avalos, who were identified as Destiny, 13, and Rafael, 12, as reported by the outlet. Telemundo.
“They are little short of monsters for what they did. The two defendants are evil individuals”, affirmed the deputy prosecutor, Jonathan Hatami during the trial in Los Angeles, in the United States.
Although the couple who murdered Anthony Avalos were expected to be sentenced to death, the penalty could be life in prison without parole.
Terrifying details of how the 10-year-old boy died were learned during the trial.
The little boy’s brothers testified in the process that they saw his mother’s boyfriend take Anthony Avalos by the ankles and throw him headlong to the ground twenty times a day before the authorities arrived at the house where the minor lived.
The couple, who have been behind bars since 2018, pleaded not guilty to the murder.
Between the two they have 12 children from different relationships, according to data reported by the EFE agency.
The mistreatment to which Anthony Avalos was subjected, as well as his brothers, had been denounced since 2013 by a teacher, a counselor and relatives.
Two years later, in 2015, an aunt of the minors, Maria Barron, again filed a complaint with the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services, but no official came to the rescue of the children, which placed them under the magnifying glass the inoperability of the entity.
The relative of Anthony Avalos revealed at the time to the United States media that his nephews told him that sometimes their mother’s boyfriend locked them in a small room where they had to urinate and defecate on the floor.
Official reports indicated that before dying, little Anthony received no food, could no longer walk and remained lying on the ground.
The children’s aunt repudiated the attitude of Anthony Avalos’s mother and her boyfriend: “They have the face of pretending that they did nothing. They killed the boy, they tortured him.”