LOS ANGELES (KNX) - A Lancaster woman and her boyfriend were convicted on Tuesday of torturing and murdering the woman's 10-year-old son, Anthony Avalos, who died in 2018.
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Wrapping up a non-jury trial, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta found Heather Maxine Barron, 33, and Kareem Ernesto Leiva, 37, guilty of one count each of murder and torture for the boy's June 21, 2018, death.
A grand jury indictment also charged Barron and Leiva with two counts of child abuse involving two other children in the Lancaster home, with Leiva facing an allegation that he personally inflicted great bodily injury on one of the youngsters in circumstances involving domestic violence.
Barron and Leiva tortured Anthony Avalos during the last five days of his life, according to prosecutors. Avalos was whipped with a belt and a looped cord; he was allegedly dropped on his head repeatedly; and hot sauce was allegedly poured on his face and mouth, according to prosecutors.
Barron called 911 at about 12:15 p.m. on June 20, 2018, to report her son was unresponsive. Avalos died in the hospital the next day. Investigators deemed the boy's death suspicious.
Members of Avalos's family, including his father, filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles County alleging failure on the part of multiple social workers, who had previously visited the Lancaster home. The county settled with attorneys for the family for $32 million in May 2022.
From 2013 until his death in 2018, reports of abuse were made to the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services that Anthony and his six half-siblings were denied food and water, beaten, sexually abused, dangled upside-down from a staircase, forced to crouch for hours while holding heavy objects, locked in small spaces with no access to a bathroom, forced to fight each other and forced to eat from the trash, according to the plaintiffs' court papers.
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