Mother charged with murder in 2016 death of 4-year-old son

Alyssa Garcia, 29, of Chicago, has been charged with murder after allegedly abusing and starving her four-year-old son to death in the back room of their home 

A 29-year-old mother has been charged with murder, two years after the charred remains of her malnourished four-year-old son were discovered in an abandoned building.

Alyssa Garcia was initially charged in 2016 with concealment of a death after firefighters found Manuel Aguilar’s partially burned body in the basement of a home, but now the charges have been upgraded to first-degree murder.

Garcia allegedly put clothes on her dead son, wrapped him in a blanket and set him on fire because she didn’t want Illinois state to take away her other children, according to prosecutors.

A prosecutor told a judge that Manuel was so small that investigators initially believed they had found a nine-month-old baby.

Authorities have said the child had been kept in a back room of his family’s home that reeked of feces and urine.

Witnesses told police his screams of ‘let me out!’ were either ignored or met with a beating according to the Chicago Tribune.

Manuel had been kept in a room where his family’s bicycles were also kept and was often was left naked because he would urinate on himself.

Chicago police responded to a call of arson at this abandoned house in Englewood in 2016

Chicago police responded to a call of arson at this abandoned house in Englewood in 2016

The boy was reportedly given a black eye, beaten with a shoe and was ‘so skinny that his ribs were showing’.

Five of his older siblings were later placed in protective custody.

Garcia admitted what she did in a video-recorded statement and said she didn’t seek medical attention for Manuel or call police when she found him not breathing on July 29 2016 because she feared the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services would take her other children away. 

The rear of the house where the little boy's burned remains were discovered

The rear of the house where the little boy’s burned remains were discovered

Instead, Garcia and her the 17-year-old son allegedly washed Manuel’s body, put clothes on him, wrapped him in a towel and took the body to an abandoned home and set the body on fire.

Police took Garcia and two teens into custody after seeing them running away from the back of the abandoned building.  

The state Department of Children and Family Services already knew of Garcia.

In 2012, she was sentenced to 18 months supervision for endangering the life of a child.

The Tribune reported that DCFS had previously opened two separate investigations into Garcia, at one point taking protective custody of her four children.

Garcia is jailed and faces a July 11 hearing.



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