According to a law enforcement source, the alleged MS-13 gang member who is scheduled to stand trial next week for the terrible 2018 murder of his California girlfriend’s 10-year-old kid is an El Salvadorian national who is illegally residing in the United States.
According to court documents, Kareem Ernesto Leiva, 37, and his American girlfriend Heather Maxine Barron, 33, are both accused of killing and torturing Anthony Avalos and of abusing two other children who lived in the house.
The youngster allegedly endured “severe physical agony and suffering” in the home, according to the prosecution, which included beatings, starvation, being made to kneel on rice, being force-fed, being lashed, and other things.
Leiva was charged with domestic violence against women in both 2010 and 2013 and was allegedly responsible for the shanking of another prisoner.
Another suspected MS-13 member who was indicted in a federal racketeering case against a murderous drug cartel in 2016 is his brother, Mauricio Leiva, according to court records.
The murder trial for Leiva and Barron is set to begin in Los Angeles the following week. Saeed Teymouri and Jonathan Hatami, who gained notoriety as the prosecutor in charge of the Gabriel Fernandez trial, have been given the case.
Dan Chambers, Leiva’s defence lawyer, did not immediately reply to a message requesting comment.
Barron and Leiva were earlier accused by the prosecution of whipping the youngster, dousing him with hot sauce, and hanging him upside down. According to court filings, Anthony had been tortured “for almost two weeks, up until paramedics responded to [the] apartment and found Anthony’s lifeless body.”
Other forms of maltreatment faced by Anthony and his siblings were curling iron burns and long periods of confinement to their rooms.
According to the records, Barron contacted 911 on June 20, 2018, just a few weeks after Anthony’s fourth-grade academic year ended, to report that her son was unresponsive.
When the police arrived, they discovered the youngster to be unresponsive and covered with bruises and cuts. On his stomach, he also had circular burn scars. Doctors remarked he was “severely malnourished and dehydrated” when he was taken to the hospital.
The next morning, his death was confirmed.
Anthony’s death was judged a homicide by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, who also noted numerous causes of death, including subdural, subarachnoid, and intraparenchymal cerebral haemorrhages brought on by blunt-force head trauma.
He was frequently dumped on his head while being held up by his feet, subjected to wrestling manoeuvres as punishment, made to fight other kids in the house, tossed into furniture, hit in the face with a ping-pong paddle, slammed to the floor, and given rug burn.
Anthony was reportedly unable to walk or eat the day before the 911 call. He was allegedly left unconscious for hours by Leiva and Barron.
Leiva repeatedly slammed Anthony on his head that evening, delivering the final fatal blows, according to the prosecution. The police were not contacted by Barron until the following morning. Leiva purposefully left the house with his kids before the police showed up.
According to court documents, authorities had been made aware of reports of alleged child abuse for many years. A different adult male acquaintance of hers was charged with sexually assaulting her son when he was only 5 years old even before Barron started dating Leiva.
Authorities determined that investigations into numerous prior child abuse allegations were “inconclusive” despite numerous interactions with county child services.
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