A capital murder charge has been filed against an Irving man who is accused of Tuesday’s beating death of a 2-year-old child.
Arturo Santiago Pena-Almanza Jr, 23, is being held in the Dallas County jail without bond. He faces a single capital murder charge for the Sept 21 death of Jeremiah Degrate Rios.
“Irving Officers responded to an unconscious person call in the 300 block of Brown Dr. Upon arrival Irving Police and Fire Department personnel found Jeremiah deceased inside the residence,” a police department news release says.
Pena-Almanza was dating the child’s mother, police say. An arrest affidavit says the child’s mother was asleep during the child’s death and says the mother awoke to find the child “was no longer conscious, had stiffness and was cold to the touch.”
Detectives initially talked to Pena-Almanza but were suspicious of the story. An autopsy, coupled with evidence from the scene caused more concern.
“During the investigation, video surveillance was found that showed the Defendant leaving the apartment with the victim, who was alert and awake at 03:19 hours,” the arrest affidavit says.
“The Defendant and the victim went and sat in the victim’s mother’s vehicle, then fifty-one minutes later, the Defendant is seen walking back to the apartment with the victim. You can see and hear the Defendant give two rescue breaths to the victim, followed by the victim’s head abruptly falling in an unnatural manner, appearing to be limp.”
That caused police to interview Pena-Almanza a second time.
“While investigators were interviewing him on Thursday, and then talking to him, he ended up confessing to hitting Jeremiah seveal times due to the child wiping feces from the diaper on him. And he just began hitting the child,” said Irving Police Officer Robert Reeves.
At that point, the charge of capital murder of a person under 10 was filed. The charge carries the possibility of a death sentence.
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