New Orleans authorities have charged the mother of a non-verbal 12-year-old boy with a developmental condition for allegedly failing to check on him before he left their house and was killed in an alligator attack.
New Orleans Police Department Assistant Superintendent Hans Ganthier said that Hilda Vasquez faces charges of negligent homicide and second-degree cruelty to a juvenile.
Bryan Vasquez, 12, went missing on Aug. 14, and his body was found in a lagoon near his residence on Aug. 26, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office determined he died from blunt trauma consistent with an alligator attack and subsequent drowning, according to ABC News.
Mr. Ganthier said the incident was “not the first time that Bryan has been the victim of any sort of trauma or anything that we deem to be negligent.”
Ms. Vasquez has a previous conviction for abusing Bryan when he was three months old, resulting in a collapsed lung, skull fracture and broken legs, New Orleans Police Department Deputy Superintendent Nicholas Gernon said at a press conference.
The New Orleans Police Department also accuses Ms. Vasquez of not installing restraints to stop Bryan from leaving the house despite previous incidents where he left the home in August, and of not checking on Bryan for a four-hour period despite his disability on the day he went missing, according to the Times-Picayune.
