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A 7-year-old's sister and her boyfriend were charged Tuesday with child abuse resulting in death after the two beat and kicked the Colorado girl to death as they were acting out fights from Mortal Kombat, according to arrest affidavits.
Heather Trujillo, 16, and her boyfriend, Lamar Roberts, 17, of Westminster, are being held on $100,000 bond.
Zoe died on Dec. 6 from blunt force trauma to her brain and central nervous system. According to the Weld County Coroner her right wrist was broken, her body had more than 20 bruises, her neck muscles were bleeding and skin near her tongue had been torn.
According to the arrest affidavits, Trujillo told investigators she and Roberts were babysitting Zoe (Garcia) and her twin, 3-year-old sisters, while their mother worked at the Corral Bar about five blocks away.Trujillo said they were acting out the video game "Mortal Combat" by savagely hitting and kicking Zoe, even dropping her on her side, which broke her wrist. Roberts, who claimed to be a martial-arts expert with his hands registered as "lethal weapons, said Zoe had asked him to stop hitting her but that he didn't because "...I was drunk."
Roberts said he had performed a back kick on her, then kicked her again as she ran toward him. She fell back and didn't get up. She had stopped breathing, and Trujillo and Roberts waited 15 minutes before calling for help.
They said they put her in a bath, which temporarily revived her, but that she stopped breathing again. Roberts said he cracked an egg in her mouth "to see if she was messing around with them."
The egg went down her throat, the affidavit stated.
Finally, the mother and paramedics were called. Zoe was taken to the Northern Colorado Medical Center where she was pronounced dead.
A witness told investigators that she asked Roberts whether Zoe had asked them to stop. "Yeah, she told me to stop," he said. Asked why he didn't stop, he said, "I don't know; I was drunk."
I can't even begin to express both my sincere sorrow for the loss this family must be going through now and my disgust at these teens who decided to get drunk and beat a child to death.
Sister charged in "Mortal Kombat" death of 7-year-old [Denver Post]
Teens charged in death of girl, 7 [Rocky Mountain News]
