On Thursday, a Texas stepmother trembled and sobbed on the witness stand as she desperately insisted she was not responsible for torturing and starving her stepson.
Miranda Casares’ crocodile tears had little impact on the committee that sentenced her to 25 years in prison for the tragic death of 4-year-old Benjamin “Benji” Cervera.
The 25-year-old Texas woman took the stand the day before after a jury found her guilty of injury to a child by omission, a first-degree felony. The San Antonio Express-News reported.
Ms. Casares was at the mercy of her abusive husband, who forced him to drink urine mixed with toilet water, hot sauce, and even hand sanitizer, and forced him to eat bread made from crushed dirt and flowers. He claimed that it had become.
The boy weighed just 28 pounds when he died in August 2017, just a month shy of his fifth birthday.
“I didn’t starve him. I didn’t force him to use hand sanitizer,” Casares said in her testimony. “I never forced him to eat salsa.”
Casares said Benjy’s father, Brandon Lee Cervera, was the one who hit him, punched him and dragged him around the house because he soiled his diaper.
Casares, who breastfed her 3-month-old infant throughout the trial, maintained that she thought of Benji as “one of my children.”
As proof, she unveiled a tattoo of his name and his favorite “Paw Patrol” character on her arm a month after his death.
However, jurors were not particularly impressed. Especially after being shown a heartbreaking video of the morning Benji died desperately searching for food, Casares coldly tells him that it won’t happen.
They were also shown photos of the family’s locked refrigerator and cabinets, as well as surveillance video of a man searching for scraps at night.
Ms Casares also sent an email to her mother expressing her frustrations with Benji, but she tried to claim in court that her husband had sent the email.
“I don’t know how long it’s going to take. You motherfucker, my son, I can’t sleep over this little 5-year-old that everyone thinks is so perfect. …It’s over, good for this kid. I need a baby,” the text read.
Prosecutor Michael Villarreal implored the jury to sentence Casares to life in prison, saying Benji did not have access to what he needed for the remaining two months before he starved to death.
“And the person who did it was the one he called mom,” Villarreal said during the panel discussion.
“She considers herself the victim of Benji’s death, not the perpetrator.”
In the end, the jury sentenced him to 25 years in prison. She must serve at least half of her sentence in order for her to be eligible for parole.
Cervera, 28, will be charged with one count of wounding a child with intent to cause serious bodily injury when he goes on trial next month.
