A California stepmother was sentenced to 7 years to life and 7 years, 10 months for torturing her 10-year-old stepdaughter as the judge overseeing the case said he hoped she “spends the rest of her life in prison.”
“She is evil incarnate,” Orange County Superior Court Judge Scott Steiner said of 35-year-old Mayra Chavez. “I can only hope she remains in prison for the rest of her life. She is totally unsuited for life among the free.”
Chavez was convicted last month on one count of torture, two counts of child abuse, and simple assault, KABC reported.
According to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, the girl was rushed to the hospital in August 2o22 by her father, who told doctors she had harmed herself and fallen down the stairs. But doctors weren’t buying the story. The girl weighed just 50 pounds and had a broken neck with bone sticking out of a unhealed wound and bruises “from head to toe.”
Anaheim police had previously done a welfare check at the apartment after family members reported concern about the young girl, but officers left without seven seeing the girl after Chavez laughed and pointed to all the food in the refrigerator and on countertops.
The girl was zip-tied to a bed in one of the apartment’s bedrooms the entire time police were there.
The jury that convicted Chavez last month found her guilty of simple assault involving her 17-year-old son.
Testimony over the course of Chavez’s trial revealed that the 10-year-old’s sisters were forced to participate in her torture, that she was often tethered to a TV stand and forced to eat only oatmeal while the others ate full meals, that she was forced to kneel on rice or broken tin cans and hold weights over her head for hours. Her sisters, who broke down on the witness stand, said the girl was also plunged into ice baths and had hot pepper juice rubbed into her eyes.
The 10-year-old girl’s father, Domingo Junior Flores, is awaiting trial on charges of torture, child abuse and endangerment, and causing great bodily injury. He was awarded custody of the little girl and two older daughters after a lengthy battle with his ex-wife “despite numerous court order violations being reported to authorities and multiple interactions with county social workers alleging abuse,” the district attorney’s office said.
The little girl appeared in court with a glittery purple walker to read a victim’s impact statement at Chavez’s sentencing. “I hope you die,” she told her stepmother.
The girl’s mother also provided a statement, describing seeing her daughter in a hospital bed, all “skin and bones, bruises and scabs.”
“She was the personification of a whisper,” she said. “We sleep in soft beds with fluffy blankets surrounded by more pillows than we can count. We take warm baths – not baths filled with ice. We throw bath bombs. We frost cupcakes and have movie nights. We play in our backyard whenever we want to – and sit in the warmth of the sun. We’re making up for lost time. They not only survived; they triumphed.”
District Attorney Todd Spitzer said after the sentencing hearing that he would be launching an investigation into the failures of the child services system that left the girl in the care of a father and stepmother who tortured her.
“This methodical and diabolical torture of children was normalized in this household to the point these children thought it was their fault they were being abused,” Spitzer said. “Our job as parents is to celebrate the joy of childhood and embrace the laughter and the light of our children.
“The system failed this little girl. The system failed her siblings. Help was on the other side of the door, but over and over again, help didn’t come for this little girl until it was almost too late. … We will get to the bottom of how this happened and what can be done to prevent another child from suffering the fate of what these children suffered at the hands of the very people who were supposed to protect them.”
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[Featured image: Mayra Chavez/Orange County District Attorney’s Office]
