California woman convicted of torturing 10-year-old step-daughter

A 33-year-old Anaheim woman was convicted Wednesday of inflicting what prosecutors described as “unspeakable” torture on a 10-year-old step-daughter who was left severely malnourished, and of abusing other children in her care.

Deputy District Attorney Bethel Cope-Vega told jurors during closing arguments Wednesday that Chavez may have aimed the brunt of the abuse at the one girl over anger at her biological mother, with whom Chavez and her husband were apparently embroiled in a vicious custody battle. “She found ways to up the ante,” Cope-Vega said. “She sat around thinking about new ways to torture.”

With schools closing during the pandemic, Chavez had free rein to abuse the girl, the prosecutor said. When an officer made a welfare check on the girl following a complaint by a relative in 2022, Chavez was able to convince them that nothing was awry using “award-winning theatrics,” the prosecutor added.

Cope-Vega described photos of the girl taken when she first arrived at the hospital as looking like autopsy photos, noting that she was “literally covered with injuries from head to toe.”The three other victims were forced to witness the torture, and were themselves struck and abused by Chavez, according to testimony during the trial.

Chavez also suffered from anxiety and depression, Nocella said. The defense attorney argued that there wasn’t the intent on Chavez’s part needed to find her guilty of torture.The prosecutor pushed back against the description of the 10-year-old as a “difficult child,” saying others who knew her — including the doctors and hospital workers who interacted with her — described her as a “sweet and loving” girl who was “starved for affection.

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