Father held in stabbing death of toddler
Manuel Velazquez was inside his North Hollywood apartment early Friday afternoon when he heard screaming.
Velazquez, 64, walked outside and saw his nextdoor neighbor holding her 13-month-old daughter, Rosario Bautista, in her arms. The child was drenched in blood.
Velazquez asked the woman what happened, and she said her boyfriend had gone “crazy” and stabbed the child, police said. Then Velazquez noticed a fire coming from the apartment.
The man, Noe Torres, 28, stabbed the child about 11 a.m. in front of family, then set a small fire inside the apartment, Los Angeles Police Capt. Steve Carmona said.
Torres, who had been burned, jumped out a back window, police said. When police arrived, a kitchen knife was still in his body.
Torres, who also had a knife in his waistband, refused to comply with police commands.
After using a Taser and beanbag rounds, officers were able to take Torres into custody, Carmona said.
According to online records, Torres is being held on $1-million bail.
The child was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Torres underwent surgery, police said.
Family members told police that Torres might have been under the influence of methamphetamine, Carmona said.
The killing stunned the small community where the family lived. Neighbors on Saturday morning walked around the apartment courtyard and talked in hushed tones as another family set up chairs and tables for another girl’s birthday party.
The smell of ash hung in the air, and behind the complex was a pile of scorched belongings, among them a pink bike and a pink chiffon dress.
In the apartment courtyard near a statue of the Virgin Mary, a black-and-white photo had been added of Rosario in a white dress, smiling. Geraldine Calvillo, 28, said she had just seen the child playing in the courtyard Thursday night. Calvillo said her daughter, for whom the birthday party was being held, is about the same age as Rosario. “It’s hard,” she said. Alyson Aspe, Velazquez’s granddaughter, who also lives next door to the family, said she was at school Thursday when her grandfather called her with the news.
Velazquez, along with the child’s cousin, rushed back to the apartment but couldn’t get past the police tape.
“I was shocked,” she said. “I just carried the baby the day before.”
Aspe said the family was generally quiet but the mother and father “would fight a lot.”
Rosario, she said, was a shy, serious baby who warmed up only to people she knew well.
Aspe, who has lived at the complex for about six years, said the area is normally safe.
She said that sometimes, gang members hang out in the alley, but nothing like the killing of Rosario had happened.
“She was cute,” Aspe said of the child.
Carmona said the case is tragic.
“It affects officers, it affects everybody,” he said.
Calvillo said that when she last saw the child, the girl had fallen off her bike and had started to cry.
Her father was nearby, comforting her. He told her everything would be OK.