Mom to face more child abuse charges
ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - An Albuquerque woman accused of severely abusing her 4-month-old baby girl spent this Mother’s Day in jail.
Investigators said Sunday that the allegations against Angela Meza, 29, will soon include the baby’s twin brother after tests showed he has injuries, too.
Investigators described this as one of the worst cases of child abuse they’ve seen in a long time. The baby girl is at Presbyterian Hospital suffering from numerous head injuries, broken and fractured ribs and legs.
Sergeant Rachel Azbill with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit said the baby girl is going to be blind and may never be able to walk.
“She's going to have many, many issues with her day-to-day functioning,” Azbill explained. “Whether she'll be able to walk, we don't know. We don't know if her hearing is affected at this time and of course she has severe brain injury.”
The baby’s twin brother and their 5-year-old brother are in protective custody.
“It's another heart-breaking story, but at least we got the kids taken out of the homes, and Angela [Meza] is in jail right now,” Azbill said.
The 5-year-old boy told investigators that he saw his mom choke and hit his baby sister. One day he could be the star witness against his mother.
If we didn't have the statement from the 5-year-old, I don't think she would have confessed at all,” Azbill said.
Azbill said Meza confessed to strangling the baby girl and throwing her in her crib, but she never showed remorse.
“She was just very cold, she was very cold. The eight hours in the interview room, never shed a tear,” Azbill described. “[She] didn't have really any excuse aside from that she was stressed.”
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Members of the Special Victims Unit will meet with the Children, Youth and Families Division Monday to discuss the case. Investigators said they don’t want to let the children stay with relatives because the 5-year-old may have to testify against his mother later on.
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