A 2-year-old boy was killed last week from blunt force injuries while staying at his adult sister’s house in east Austin. His sister and her boyfriend are accused of trying to cover it up.
Austin police officers were called to the 6400 of Springdale Road — just south of Manor Road — at 3:11 p.m. on Saturday, June 2 for the report of a child who was eating and then stopped breathing.
The 911 caller said the 2-year-old boy, identified by Austin police as Noel Leal, was cold and not awake. Court documents show the caller said they were unable to open the baby’s mouth to perform CPR.
Arriving police officers said they found the toddler “obviously deceased” with full rigor mortis, or stiffening of the body.
Police found the boy’s hair wet, fresh injuries on the left side of his face, a healing injury on his lower leg and vomit on the toddler’s clothes.
The boy’s mother told police she had taken the victim to her adult daughter’s house the day before and that her son had not been sick or had any injuries.
The boy’s 22-year-old sister Selissa Flores said she gave the victim Tylenol and chicken soup after he woke up saying he didn’t feel well.
Flores told police the boy appeared to have trouble eating a fry, his eyes rolled back and he fell back on the couch. Flores said she laid her brother down and called 911.
An exam of the victim showed the boy had severe damage to his body caused by blunt force injuries, including a skull fracture, bruising on his face, groin and back and deep blood loss in his armpits.
The manner of death was ruled a homicide.
Flores’ boyfriend, 25-year-old Miguel Berumen-Zepeda, told police when he arrived at the house around 2 p.m. he was in the bathroom for several minutes when he heard a commotion that the 2-year-old was not breathing. He told investigators he then started CPR on the boy.
On Tuesday, June 5, police interviewed Flores again. She said she woke up at 6 a.m. that Saturday and found the boy dead in the back corner of the bedroom.
Flores, who claimed she was asleep and didn’t know what happened to her brother, admitted to police that her boyfriend told her not to say anything.
Later in the day, Flores said she used baby wipes to clean up her brother’s body and changed his clothes, then called 911 claiming he was choking. Police say the 911 call wasn’t made until nine hours after Flores found her brother at 6 a.m. She also admitted to deleting text messages from her phone.
Also on Tuesday, police interviewed a juvenile witness about what happened who said Berumen-Zepeda had a hatred toward the 2-year-old boy.
The witness said he saw his sister’s boyfriend hit the victim once on Friday night because the boy was crying. He heard the toddler crying and then a few minutes later Berumen-Zepeda came out of the room and went to sleep. He saw that the toddler was dead in the bedroom.
Berumen-Zepeda was booked into the Travis County Jail on Thursday and charged with tampering with physical evidence. His bond has been set at $100,000. Flores was also booked into the jail Thursday also on a charge of tampering with physical evidence. Her bond has been set at $75,000.
Detectives say the toddler’s mother was cooperative. “She wanted to find out the truth. And even though Selissa is her daughter, she cooperated fully with the investigation,” said Lt. Jason Staniszewski.
Authorities believe the toddler had received injuries in the past, which Berumen-Zepeda admitted to.
Anyone with information on the death is asked to call the Homicide Tip Line at 512-477-3588 or Crime Stoppers at 512-472-TIPS.
