Louisiana residents are horrified by the discovery of the remains of a missing 12-year-old who was reportedly killed by alligators, but previous allegations against his mother make the case even more disturbing.
The remains of Bryan Vasquez were found by a volunteer of the United Cajun Navy with the aid of a thermal drone after a massive search that lasted for 12 days. The boy had been reported missing from his home in the Michoud neighborhood of New Orleans.
He was suffering from a fractured skull, a collapsed lung, retinal hemorrhages, fractured ankles, and fractured legs as well as a punctured lung.
Volunteer Jon Gusanders said in a press conference Thursday that he saw a “violent movement under the water’s surface” that led him to find the body in a lagoon.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said, “and I hope to never see anything like that again.”
He said that two alligators, one about 11 feet long and the other about 6 feet long, were holding the boy’s body underwater before they were spooked by the drone.
Gusanders said that he used the drone to distract the alligators from recovery efforts since they kept returning to the boy’s body and pushing it deeper into the lagoon.
A coroner found that the boy died from blunt force trauma and drowning in the alligator attack.
“We did everything we could to protect his body, to protect his honor, while the NOPD got their boat out to successfully recover him,” he added.
The boy had been missing since Aug. 14 after he slipped out of a window. A neighbor’s security camera appeared to capture him in him walking by in a diaper.
Police have obtained a search warrant in the case and confiscated the woman’s cell phone in the investigation.
On Thursday, WDSU reported disturbing details in a conviction against Hilda Vasquez, the mother of the child. In 2013, the boy was rushed to the hospital when only 3 months old because he was vomiting blood and had stopped breathing.
His mother said that they were watching television when the boy began screaming as if “someone was squeezing him.”
Doctors said the boy was the victim of child abuse after noting that he was suffering from a fractured skull, a collapsed lung, retinal hemorrhages, fractured ankles, and fractured legs as well as a punctured lung.
The mother was sentenced to five years for child abuse but later received probation. She was eventually able to regain custody of the child.
While she described the boy as autistic and nonverbal, a report from the Department of Children and Family Services in 2021 said that his disability had been classified as “traumatic brain injury (non-accidental).”
A representative for the Vasquez family released a statement blaming domestic abuse for the previous conviction.
“All I can say is that as a community advocate for this community, I know for a fact in Hilda’s past she was a victim of domestic violence,” Cristiane Rosales-Fajardo said. “I know that in her past she has done everything to protect her children and that her child was living with her at the time he walked out of the house. All four of her children was living with her, so if the state and DCFS believe she is a danger, then that means they failed him again.”
Fajardo has also opened a GoFundMe account to raise funds for the family.
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