Sixth-grader testifies about brother’s death
Miranda Casarez forced hand sanitizer and hot sauce down the throat of her 4-year-old stepson, the child’s older brother testified Thursday at her trial.
Casarez, 25, is charged with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury by omission in the death of Benjamin Cervera, fondly known as Benji.
Prosecutors say she and the boy’s biological father, Brandon Lee Cervera, withheld food and water and failed to seek medical care for Benji, who weighed 28 pounds when he died in a hospital on Aug. 17, 2021.
A Bexar County medical examiner said the cause was starvation. Cervera, 30, is a co-defendant in the case and is to be tried later.
Benji’s older brother, whom prosecutors identified as BC, was 10 when Benji died. He is now 12, a sixth-grader who said he likes to draw.
He looked scared as he took the witness stand in the 186th District Court, holding a small toy in one hand. State District Judge Kristina Escalona allowed his guardian, a greataunt, to sit in the courtroom within the boy’s sight.
BC avoided looking at the defendant, also his stepmom, who appeared angry and at times stared at him.
Questioned by prosecutor Thomas Damico, BC told the jury that Casarez used hand sanitizer to punish Benji.
“She would force him to open his mouth, and she’d put it in there,” he told the panel.
Asked how Casarez did that, the boy said their stepmother “would force Benji by grabbing his mouth to open it. It hurts, and hand sanitizer tastes bad.”
BC said Casarez did the same thing with hot sauce.
“She did it when he (Benji) was trying to escape,” the child testified.
He said Casarez would play “flip flop” with Benji — “throw him up in the air and let him fall to the ground and he would cry.”
BC said if there was urine left unflushed in the toilet bowl, she would grab a cup, “get nasty water” and make Benji drink it.
He told the jury Casarez would make the child drink toilet water “whenever she was mad and whenever Benji does something bad.”
The child recalled a story when he and his siblings were at a park with Casarez and her sister and the kids had stepped in “little purple flowers.”
Once they got home, Casarez took the shoes that had the debris from the park on them, rubbed the shoes on some bread and forced Benji to eat it.
“He ate it all,” BC told the jury. “He was hungry.”
He testified that Benji was hungry all the time and would try to get to food that was secured in the kitchen’s locked cabinets and refrigerator. He acknowledged Benji tried to unlock the devices, but Casarez and his father were the only ones who knew the combinations, he said.
The only food that was ever left out was bread, BC said.
BC said Casarez prepared food for him and Benji, her son and her infant girl when they all lived with his father in an apartment on Eisenhauer Road. If she didn’t cook, BC said, his father would pick up food for all.
“Miranda would not feed Benji,” the boy told the jury. “She would feed him when my dad was there, or he would bring food.”
The witness said he was afraid to help Benji.
“The last time I tried to give him food, (Casarez) took it and threw it away,” he told the panel.
The child told the panel that Casarez would get angry at Benji “whenever he would spill stuff or does something on accident.”
When Damico asked BC if
Benji got punished, BC said Casarez would “grab the belt and smack him with it or put him in timeout,” he told the jury.
He said Casarez “sometimes” would hit Benji on his bottom, but added “she usually misses and hits him on the lower back.”
Defense attorney Anthony B. Cantrell objected to the child’s testimony. He had asked Escalona to not allow it because he said the child had changed his story, and he alleged that BC had been coached on what to say, by either his father or the relatives who were caring for him.
The defense attorney urged the child not to lie. The boy insisted he knew that lying was bad and telling the truth was good.
Cantrell asked BC several times whether he saw Benji do harm to himself, as Casarez told authorities after her arrest. The defense attorney asked whether Benji threw himself on the floor and banged his head, but BC said his brother banged his head against a wall.
“She told Benji to do it,” BC said, referring to Casarez.
Cantrell repeatedly asked if he told his father about Benji’s mistreatment or the fact that he wasn’t eating.
“You had numerous opportunities to tell him this and you never did, did you?” Cantrell told BC.
“I was terrified of Miranda,” BC said.
“You could have said something,” Cantrell told BC, who repeated that he was “terrified.”
Cantrell told BC he would say whatever he needed to say to protect his father.
At first the boy said yes, then added that he would tell the truth to save his father.
“My dad is my only piece left,” BC told the jury. “Without him, it’s like I don’t even have a dad.”
The trial is expected to conclude early next week.