The city of Los Angeles is currently learning answers to unanswered questions in the death of an 11-year-old autistic boy who died in August. Justice will be served in the sudden death of the autistic boy with his mother currently facing murder charges in his death.
According to the Los Angeles Times, court records obtained by the site reveal that they boy, Yonatan Daniel Aguilar who was reportedly autistic, was locked in closets during the three years prior to his death. Veronica Aguilar, the boy’s mother is facing murder charges for his death.
Court documents from the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court reveal that Yonatan was locked in closets and sedated by liquid sleeping aids given to him by his mother. The site reports that when people asked the 39-year-old where her son was, she told them he had been placed in an institution in Mexico.
While this gruesome incident occurred, only her three other children-two of whom slept on a bed just outside the closet door- knew the truth. The children revealed to investigators that they were forbidden to say anything to anyone.
Yonatan Daniel Aguilar’s tortured life came to an end in August. Police later found the 11-year-old’s battered, malnourished 34-pound body in the bedroom closet of the family’s tiny Echo Park home.
Los Angeles police detectives investigating the case believed Aguilar’s efforts to hide the boy were so effective that even the boy’s stepfather, Jose Pinzon, didn’t know Yonatan lived with them all along.
The day of Yonatan’s death, Moses Castillo, the supervising LAPD detective on the case, placed Pinzon and Yonatan’s siblings together in a room “to see the reaction,” Department of Children and Family Services records state. As detectives and a county social worker stood by, Pinzon “immediately confronts the children that he had no idea that minor Yonatan was living in the house the whole time they were there,” records state.
On Aug. 22, Aguilar told Pinzon that Yonatan had died and asked him to care for her other children. He assumed she would be going to Mexico to bury the boy.
“I took care of the problem by ruining my life,” Aguilar told Pinzon, according to the court records. Police say Pinzon then ran out of the house to a nearby 7-Eleven, where he called authorities.
The Los Angeles Times petitioned the court to release DCFS case records, police reports and coroner’s reports in this case. The 160 pages of documents show the boy’s family was the focus of six prior reports to DCFS alleging possible abuse or neglect. Despite the boy’s risk of abuse at the home being marked “high” four times between 2009 and 2012, social workers failed to open a case, the Time is reporting.
Aguilar is currently being held at the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood in lieu of $2-million bail. If convicted as charged, she could face a maximum sentence of 15 years to life in state prison.
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