Inset Alvaro Mejia-Ayala (Leesburg Police Department). Background: The apartment complex where Mejia-Ayala allegedly strangled his infant sister in Leesburg, Va. (Google Maps).
A Virginia man is behind bars after strangling his infant sister with a charging cord, authorities say.
Alvaro Mejia-Ayala, 21, stands accused of one felony count of strangulation, according to the Leesburg Police Department. On Wednesday, the baby girl was found with a white USB charging cord still around her neck and rushed to a nearby hospital.
The child survived the attack but remains in critical condition, according to law enforcement.
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The incident occurred at an apartment on Hancock Place Northeast in Leesburg, a medium-sized town in the Washington, D.C., metro area.
Officers responded to the residence around 10 a.m. on Wednesday in response to a report about an infant not breathing. Investigators quickly determined the child had been attacked and identified her adult brother, Mejia-Ayala, as the suspect – saying he fled on foot before police arrived at the scene of the crime, according to court documents obtained by Washington, D.C.-based Fox affiliate WTTG.
After the strangling, the defendant allegedly contacted a friend and asked for a ride, saying he was “playing with his sister and may have killed her,” one of those court documents alleges.
A community alert was put out asking for help with the defendant’s apprehension, describing him as wearing a white T-shirt and grey pants with a black stripe. Police initially described the then-wanted man as “a person of interest in an aggravated assault investigation.”
The defendant was arrested around 3:18 p.m. later that same day, after a roughly five-hour search, with the help of the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, according to a press release. Mejia-Ayala did not, however, appear to make it very far in that time frame. The defendant was arrested on the 100 block of Meadows Lane Northeast – which is a roughly 15-minute walk from his family’s apartment.
Police say the investigation is ongoing and that additional charges are likely to be filed against Mejia-Ayala in the days to come.
No motive for the strangulation has been floated as of this writing.
The defendant is currently detained in the Loudoun County Jail without bond. He is slated to appear in court on Nov. 13.
