A 45-year-old man in Texas could spend the rest of his life in prison for torturing and seriously mistreating his girlfriend’s two small children over a two-year period.
Among other things, he beat and starved the 3-year-old girl and her 4-year-old brother, restraining them with zip ties.
Victor Prado was sentenced to two terms of life in a state prison on Monday by Harris County District Court Judge Beverly D. Armstrong for the horrific torture, according to officials.
Prado was found guilty on several charges of causing significant physical harm to children.
In a statement made after the sentencing hearing, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg stated, “Our children are our most valuable resource and our most vulnerable victims. This man intentionally tortured two little kids, and now, hopefully, he will spend the rest of his life in prison.”
In the evening of May 19, 2020, Houston Police Department officers were called to Texas Children’s Hospital by Child Protective Services regarding two children under their custody who appeared to have been abused, as per a probable cause affidavit.
Officers arrived to find the 4-year-old child in a hospital bed with “deep ligature marks” on his wrists and ankles, a bruise behind his right eye, and an appearance of “emaciation and malnutrition to the point that his skeletal structure was visibly prominent.”
Prosecutors stated in a news release that the boy had “permanent brain tissue loss” and weighed only 32 pounds.
The boy had wrist and pelvic fractures, was underweight for a boy his age, and had a bald spot on the back of his head that was probably from “lying down for prolonged periods of time,” according to a doctor who spoke with the authorities.
According to the affidavit, the 3-year-old child had a shattered pelvis, deep ligature scars on her wrists and ankles, and was in the intensive care unit with a feeding tube in her nose. She suffered “likely caused by trauma” bleeding in her small intestine and a bed sore on her back.
The young child also had multiple fractured toes on each foot, three fractured ribs, and extensive back trauma, according to the physicians. Broken pelvises are “usually only seen in children who are in car crashes,” according to the prosecutors.
After interviewing the children, a hospital abuse panel determined that they were “both victims of child torture.”
Prado, his girlfriend, and the children lived in a building that was for commercial use; the property manager informed the police that the building was unfit for children because it lacked a kitchen and a shower.
The manager reported that she had previously spotted Prado and the mother leaving the office building at night without the children and that she occasionally heard the kids screaming at night. She had also filed a complaint with Child Protective Services earlier that month.
“(The manager) said that on one particular occasion, the (Prado and the mother) left music blaring inside the office, and she said that (the kids) were left inside and tied up,” as per the affidavit.
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The manager added that the young boy “looked like a skeleton” and that she thought the two children were being “starved.”
“(The manager) said that she spoke to Defendant Prado about why he had not been feeding (the kids), and Defendant Prado told her it was because ‘it makes the children have to poop,'” according to the affidavit.
“At a time in their lives when they should have been shown love and affection, these two children were shown violence and fear — they’ve lost their innocence,” Assistant District Attorney Ashlea Sheridan stated. “They will have to live the rest of their lives with the effects of what this man did to them, and so should he.”
