A 10-year-old Arizona girl may have suffered a decade of abuse before her death last month, three days after she was found in a wash in Holbrook, unconscious and with multiple injuries.
Rebekah Baptiste’s father, 32-year-old Richard Daniel Baptiste, and his girlfriend, 29-year-old Anicia Woods, told investigators that a neighbor found the girl in the wash on July 27, AZCentral reports.
Woods reportedly called 911, saying the child was having difficulty breathing and had run away. She died on July 30, and Woods and Baptiste were charged with murder and child abuse.
But as the investigation continued, information from child welfare officials indicated that Rebekah Baptiste and her two younger brothers may have been subjected to abuse for years.
The Arizona Department of Child Services said in a lengthy statement that law enforcement had investigated the family “at least five times” but no charges or arrests were ever made.
“The reason for this is because there was not sufficient evidence to support the allegations,” the state agency said. “Likewise, DCS investigated the Baptiste family multiple times, however, there was not sufficient evidence to support removing the children in most of the cases.”
The children were removed from the home in 2019, but Baptiste eventually regained custody.
The department detailed multiple investigations, each time saying allegations could not be substantiated. The last call came in May alleging that Woods was abusing the children, but the family moved “and the department did not have updated contact information.”
Meanwhile, court documents tell a dramatic story. In them, prosecutors say that Rebekah and her 8 and 6 year old brothers were forced to undergo grueling exercise routines in their apartment and that school officials who saw signs of the abuse repeatedly reported it, Law&Crime reported.
“In their statements, both Defendants admit to use of exercise as punishment, as well as spanking and hitting the children with a belt on multiple occasions,” the court documents say. “Baptiste described hitting R.B. with the belt approximately 10 times, with a pain level between 1-10 at a 7, and said he used ‘excessive force.’”
All three children appeared at school with “marks, scratches, or bruises,” but they often changed their stories about how they got the injuries “to protect the parents.”
“For instance, [the 8-year-old] said he got scratched on the neck because he did not clean up, and the following day, the 6-year-old changed his story completely, stating ‘his mom didn’t scratch him because he wasn’t cleaning, it was because he was playing outside, and he was falling and mom tried catching him,’” court documents said.
The children further said they were forced to do “laps and planks” as punishment and were often denied food, saying the occurrences took place multiple times between November 2023 and May 2025.
The May complaint, which was still open at the time of the girl’s death, concerned the two younger brothers. The most recent report regarding Rebekah came in January. It alleged that Baptiste would force her to run as punishment “while not allowing her bathroom or water breaks.” But again, DCS could not find “evidence to support the allegation.”
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[Featured image: Anicia Woods and Richard Baptiste/Apache County Jail. Center: Rebekah Baptiste/GoFundMe]
