Mother indicted in ‘Little Jacob’ case
Houston woman faces felony ‘injury to child’ charge after his abused body found on beach
The mother of Jayden Lopez, the 4-year-old Houston boy once known as “Little Jacob” whose body washed up on a Galveston beach last fall, is indicted by a Galveston County grand jury in relation to his death.
The mother of Jayden Lopez, the 4-year-old Houston boy given the name “Little Jacob” after his unidentified body washed up on a Galveston beach last fall, was indicted on felony charges by a Galveston County grand jury Tuesday
in connection with his death.
Rebecca Suzanne Rivera, 34, was charged with a first-degree felony offense of “injury to a child by omission causing serious bodily injury” and a second-degree felony offense of tampering with physical evidence.
Rivera had admitted to investigators to striking the boy with
“whatever I could find,” including clothes hangers, according to court filings.
She and her girlfriend, Dania Amezquita Gomez, were initially arrested in June on charges of tampering with evidence with the intent to impair a human corpse.
The FBI alleged that the two women, who lived in Houston,
traveled to Galveston to dump his body in Galveston Bay. The body was found the next day.
Rivera was being held Tuesday at the Galveston County Jail. A judge set her bail at $250,000. Christopher Henderson, her Houston-based attorney, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Gomez was also being held at the Galveston County Jail with a bail of $100,000. She faces a misdemeanor charge of tampering
with evidence with the intent to impair a human corpse.
Gomez, who is from Mexico, also has an immigration hold. Court records indicate that Gomez was in the custody of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in May, but federal authorities did not have any information as to how or why she was detained.
Gomez’s court-appointed attorney, Mark Diaz of Galveston,
said her criminal case would have to be resolved before any immigration proceedings. Diaz said Gomez believes she signed a voluntary deportation order while she was in ICE custody, but he has not yet tracked down that document.
“I’m going to request it in discovery from the state because she does not have any copies of her documents, which likely means law enforcement took it from her when she was then taken in on the state court case,” Diaz said.
‘An appalling crime’
Rivera’s indictment is the culmination of a multiagency investigation spearheaded by the FBI and the Galveston Police Department.
“This was an appalling crime that made our hearts heavy,” Bryan Gaines, the supervisory senior resident agent at the FBI office in
Texas City, said at a news conference in June after Rivera and Gomez were arrested.
“No one reported Jayden as missing. No one was looking for Jayden. Jayden had no advocate other than us. Somebody took a beautiful, innocent child and discarded him in the ocean like he was a piece of trash.”
Jayden Lopez’s body was found on a beach in Galveston on Oct. 20, 2017. Because Jayden’s identity was originally unknown, the Galveston
Police Department enlisted the help of the public to identify the child, releasing a sketch of the boy’s face and posting billboards from Texas to Kentucky and Louisiana.
Lopez was given the name “Baby Jacob” during the search before he was identified through information gained from tips submitted by the public.
In March, a caller to the FBI tip line said he believed Rivera was the boy’s mother. He told authorities that
the last time he had seen Rivera, in December, she had only one of her two children with her. That child looked “sickly” and “malnourished,” and the couple said they had been living in Chicago since October, returning
to Houston only to attend a function.
Investigators identified an apartment in southwest Houston where Rivera and Gomez were staying, finding Rivera and Gomez with a 3-year old boy.
When asked about her son, Jayden, Rivera said he had been kidnapped, according to court records. Gomez reiterated that claim under questioning, but later said she thought the boy was with Rivera’s family.
In the weeks that followed, investigators used DNA testing to show Rivera was the boy’s mother, and they used a toll booth photograph and video to show that Rivera’s car — with Rivera and Gomez believed to be inside — had driven toward Galveston in the middle of the night within hours of the child’s body being found on the beach.
Autopsy showed abuse
Autopsy results released this year indicated that Jayden Lopez had been abused before his death. He was also extremely malnourished, weighing just 26 to 30 pounds — about half the weight a normal boy his age should have been.
Rivera told investigators that Jayden had hit his head on the wall about two weeks before his death. She said she tried to clean the injury with alcohol.
After the injury, she said the boy began acting differently and became a nuisance. She said his face swelled up, his health deteriorated and he complained of stomach aches.
Eventually, Rivera said that “she could tell it was the end” and that Jayden had died, according to court filings.
Rivera and Gomez got up in the middle of the night and drove to Galveston, with the other boy in the car. They knew Jayden liked the beach, so they put his body in the water.
Rivera said she didn’t seek medical care for Jayden because she feared authorities would take away both kids, according to court records.
Court records indicate abuse may have been a pattern in the boy’s short life. A Department of Family and Protective Services investigator obtained records in July 2016 indicating that Jayden had been admitted to Texas Children’s Hospital with a broken left thigh bone, which was later confirmed by the Galveston County Medical Examiner.
Rivera’s 3-year old boy has been placed in foster care. Authorities haven’t found the child’s father.
If convicted, Rivera faces punishment on the child injury charge of five to 99 years or life in prison, and two to 20 years in prison for the charge of tampering with physical evidence.