A 3-year-old Highland Park boy endured three weeks of severe beatings-including being whipped with an extension cord and repeatedly kicked in the stomach-at the hands of his parents, who were apparently upset that he vomited and soiled his pants, authorities said Thursday.
Several veteran Lake County officials said the beatings administered to Eduardo Mendoza Jr. represented the worst case of child abuse they had ever seen.
”It`s probably the worst child-abuse murder that I can recall in the 19 years I`ve practiced law in Lake County,” said State`s Atty. Michael Waller. ”You can never get accustomed to cruelty of a child when it`s this extensive. It`s as bad as a crime could possibly get.”
Thursday afternoon, Waller charged Eduardo Mendoza Sr., 23, and his wife, Marcelina, 22, with first-degree murder in connection with the death of their son on Wednesday morning. Authorities said the couple admitted the beatings.
The boy was bitten repeatedly in his neck and on his buttocks, Highland Park police said in a news conference Thursday. The child was probably burned, and was whipped with an extension cord. He also was repeatedly kicked and punched in the stomach and the head, they said.
During the past three weeks, the boy was beaten at least 20 times, police said.
The bruises over the child`s body were so extensive it took the pathologist for the Cook County Medical Examiner`s Office more than two hours to count them, a spokesman for the office said.
The medical examiner officially listed the child`s death as being the result of multiple instances of blunt trauma.
In Illinois last year, there were 77 deaths of abused and neglected children, the vast majority of which occurred in Cook County, said Ed McManus, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. No statistics were available for this year.
If convicted, the Mendozas could face the death penalty, Waller said.
The Mendozas have been held since Wednesday in the Lake County Jail on $1 million bonds. But because of the severity of the crime, Waller said he will request that they by held without bond.
Eduardo Jr. joined his parents in Highland Park just three weeks ago after leaving Guerrero, Mexico, where he was living with his grandparents, police said.
Highland Park Police Chief Daniel Dahlberg said Eduardo Mendoza Sr. had signed a statement admitting that he was responsible for killing his son. His wife, Marcelina, admitted to biting the child until he began bleeding, he said.
She told the police she bit the child for disciplinary reasons, but police still do not know why the parents beat their only son for three weeks. ”There was very little remorse shown by the parents,” Dahlberg said.
One possible explanation for the beatings, he said, was that the child had vomited and soiled his pants on several occasions in recent days.
The Mendozas have two daughters, ages 1 and 2, and tests indicated they have not been abused, police said. The two girls are now in the custody of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
The Mendozas have lived in a house in the 1900 block of 2nd Street for two years with about a dozen other Hispanic laborers.
Mendoza Sr. worked at the Crossroads Car Wash in Highland Park and was considered to a good employee, said Lamont Plummer, the assistant manager.
”He was a damned good worker,” Plummer said. ”He was a quiet man and did what he was told.”
Alex Castrejon, a distant cousin of Mendoza Sr. who worked with him at the car wash, said he visited the Mendozas several times in the last three weeks. And he remembered Eduardo Jr. being happy when he first joined the family.
”The baby, he was happy, and he answered questions and he was really nice,” Castrejon said in broken English. ”But after he (the boy) got here, he started to change. When I nodded to say hi and hello, the baby would shake his head no.”
For most of his three years, the child was raised by grandparents in Guerrero, a town two hours south of Acapulco, said police and Castrejon.
But as soon as the child joined his family, the beatings began, police said.
Police said Mendoza admitted that he used his hands, fists, feet, shoes and an extension cord on his son throughout the three weeks he was with the family.
The child`s last night was the most tragic, police said. At about 9 p.m. Tuesday, Mendoza told authorities he struck his son very hard six to seven times in the stomach for vomiting on the floor.
About 40 minutes later, the child soiled his pants and the father said he hit his son 15 or 16 times in the stomach and back. The mother told police she cleaned her son`s pants then told her husband that he had soiled them again.
Mendoza then kicked his son very hard six or seven times in the stomach, police said.
Less than two hours later on Tuesday, the Mendozas took their son to the Highland Park Hospital emergency room and told the medical staff the child fell off his tricycle two days earlier.
Doctors and nurses who examined the boy questioned how that could have caused such severe injuries. They alerted the police to a possible case of abuse, and, because of the severity of the child`s injuries, had him transferred to Children`s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where he died early Wednesday.
