A Minnesota mother has been charged with murder in the death of her 20-month-old son after a county coroner ruled his death a homicide.
According to the Moorhead Police Department, 32-year-old Valerie Connie Zamora was arrested in Fargo, North Dakota, and is being held in the Cass County jail until she is extradited back to Minnesota.
A criminal complant filed in the case said that Zamora brought Jose Lazarus Zamora to the hospital on the night of May 15, and he was pronounced dead just after 11 p.m., WCCO reported. The Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office found bruising on the boy’s body and ruled that he died from complications of blunt force injury due to an assault.
The autopsy reported contusions all over his body as well as rib fractures.
Zamora reportedly told police that she lives in Moorhead with her partner and three children, and that the 20-month-old boy had been vomiging on the morning of May 15. She said she gave him Tylenol and Gatorade, then ran errands with the children and her partner.
The boy “basically” slept all day and was not himself. Ultimately, she told her partner they should take him to a doctor, but on the way to the hospital, she stopped at a Walmart to buy Pedialyte. While she was inside, her partner came to tell her the child was throwing up blood. At that point, the “sped” to the hospital, according to court documents.
As for the bruising, she told investigators the child bruised easily.
But police said she changed her story regarding how ill the child was before the hospital visit. She eventually said the child had started throwing up on May 14 and that the vomit material was “normal” then but changed to a black or dark substances.
Witnesses told police they’d seen the boy “at various times” on May 15 and had urged Zamora to take him to a hospital. One of her other children told investigators that she felt the child needed immediate medical care when she got home from school that afternoon, but her other said she would wait until her partner came home from work.
According to the court documents, Zamora told police she never hurt the boy but was afraid to take him in for treatment because it was “obvious neglect” and she feared having her children taken away.
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[Featured image: Valerie Connie Zamora/Cass County Sheriff’s Office]
