Caregivers find ways to disguise or hide child abuse
SAN ANTONIO — While not common, cases of children dying under mysterious circumstances — with parents claiming scenarios that absolve them of involvement — have happened before in the San Antonio area.
In 2013, Joel Soto, then 55, pulled his 1988 Chevy pickup over to the side of a street in a West Side neighborhood. He told authorities smoke was coming out from under the hood. The vehicle at some point erupted in flames.
First responders found Soto’s 2-year-old grandson, Jeremy, dead in the passenger’s seat.
Investigators determined that Soto intentionally set the fire in that seat, and an autopsy found the child’s body had methamphetamine and other drugs, including antidepressants, allergy medicine and cough syrup.
A prosecutor said at Soto’s trial in July 2017 that Soto set his grandson on fire to hide the fact that he’d died from ingesting drugs the grandfather had left around the home.
He was found guilty and was sentenced to 60 years in prison for manslaughter, injury to a child and arson.
More than 12 years ago, a mother, Valerie Lopez, 19, killed her two small children and hid them in trash bags underneath a wood-frame house where they lived on the far Southwest Side.
Lopez later admitted to beating her 14-month-old daughter, Sariyah, to death on Christmas Eve in 2006 after she wouldn’t stop crying, then hiding her body.
She maintained that her 4-month-old son, Sebastian, died accidentally when she rolled onto him in her sleep in February 2007. She hid his body under the house next to his sister’s.
Lopez pleaded guilty to two counts of capital murder in exchange for life in prison without parole. Her boyfriend, Jerry Salazar, 29, received a life term, for injury to a child by omission causing serious bodily injury. In 2011, 18-month-old Joshua Davis Jr. disappeared from his home in New Braunfels on a cold night in February as his parents had a party.
Mother Sabrina Benitez and father Josh Davis Sr. told police they had no idea how their son disappeared but feared he’d been abducted by a stranger.
An extended search failed to find any trace of the 2-foot tall, 30-pound child.
To date, no one has been charged in his disappearance.
Five years later, New Braunfels police spokesman David Ferguson said the family, while cooperating with police after their son went missing, hadn’t told the “whole truth” about that night.
Ferguson, who said the family took time to dispose of illegal drugs in the home before contacting authorities, said police believe it was highly unlikely that a child that young wandered away on his own.
Police investigators deemed Joshua’s disappearance “suspicious” and theorized he was possibly injured, removed from the house and was likely dead.