Analiz Osceola killed her stepson, Ahziya Osceola, authorities said. (Mug shot: Florida Department of Corrections)
A woman will spend the next several decades in a Florida prison for beating her 3-year-old stepson to death.
Analiz Osceola, 32, feigned ignorance when reporting young Ahziya Osceola missing the morning of March 19, 2015.
In March, jurors in Broward County convicted her of aggravated manslaughter of a child. She was sentenced on Oct. 26 to 30 years in prison and entered the Florida prison system on Monday. She received credit for 1,211 days of time served and is set for release on June 25, 2050.
According to documents obtained by Law&Crime, she claimed to have woken up to find the boy was gone. More than $3,000 in cash was missing from the kitchen counter, and the back door was left open, she said.
But officers discovered the child dead in the laundry room, stuffed in a box.
The stepmother said Ahziya had broken his foot a few weeks before by jumping off the grill on the back patio. She took him to the hospital, she said. But the staff there said they did not have a record of this, according to documents.
The medical examiner described wounds all over the child’s body. Ahziya had numerous bruises on his torso, head, face, both arms and legs. He also had numerous gouge marks on his neck. In his left leg, he suffered a spiral fracture to his tibia. There was a large open wound to the top of his foot and shin area. He would have been in extreme pain and unable to walk on his own, authorities said.
The medical examiner found the cause of death to be blunt impact abdominal trauma. Ahizya’s pancreas had been broken into three pieces, and his liver was lacerated.
All told, investigators said Osceola told them shifting stories about what happened amid the child’s disappearance and death. She confessed that she knew his whereabouts the entire time and hid the body. There was no stolen money. She left the door ajar, knowing it would open itself.
According to documents, she claimed to have woken up to find the child cold, and she realized he was dead despite her attempts to save his life.
Asked why she did not tell her husband or her mother, who had medical training and lived at the residence, she said she was scared and did not know what to do. Asked why she did not call 911, she said she was scared of what people would think.
According to authorities, Osceola said that once she was the only adult in the home, she put the boy in a box and covered him with a clear plastic bag. She stuffed two garage bags with clothes to hide him and then called the cops.
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