Last months of James Dunklee Cruz’s life*

SEPT. 18, 2019

Rio Rancho police officer finds James under the stairs alone at his mother’s apartment complex, holding two teddy bears. Officer reports the incident to CYFD.

SEPT. 19, 2019

CYFD does a home visit. James appears to be safe and the mother, Krista Cruz, says she plans to move to another state.

SEPT. 20, 2019

Cruz informs CYFD she is living with her friend Pamela Esparza. A CYFD investigator tries multiple times to schedule a home visit, but is unable to do so.

OCT. 18, 2019

CYFD gets referral that James has been taken to an urgent care with an injured shoulder, bruising on his penis and a black eye. He is interviewed by officers and a CYFD investigator, and is returned to his mother’s care.

OCT. 22, 2019

James discloses at a Safe House interview that his mother sometimes didn’t give him food, and reports multiple extreme abuses commited by Pamela Esparza and her boyfriend, Zerrick Marquez, friends with whom he and his mother had been living.

OCT. 23, 2019

CYFD investigator Jessica Etoll advises her supervisors of the boy’s disclosures and warns them not to permit the boy to return to the custody of his mother. Instead, CYFD creates a safety plan requiring Cruz not to return to the residence where Esparza and Marquez live, and to stay at Joy Junction and seek counseling.

OCT. 24, 2019

After one day, Krista Cruz leaves the homeless shelter with James, telling Etoll she is with her sister. One day later, Etoll can’t locate James and is “now frantic” about his safety. She asks APD to do a welfare check and APD is also unable to locate James.

OCT. 30, 2019

Cruz tells Etoll she and her son are with an aunt in Arizona. Etoll calls the aunt, who says Cruz and James had never come to Arizona.

NOV. 15, 2019

Cruz again tells Etoll she is in Arizona, and not with Marquez or Esparza.

DEC. 10, 2019

James is found lying unresponsive on the floor of Marquez’s apartment in Albuquerque, with a blunt trauma to his head, abrasions and bruising on his arms, chest, ear, eyes, head and right leg. He dies after being rushed to University Hospital. His death is ruled a homicide.

*Excerpts of wrongful death lawsuit pending against CYFD