Photo: San Antonio Police / Courtesy
SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio Police announced that a couple has been arrested in connection to the death of a child of 12 years.
Presumably the little boy suffered “horrible” punishments
that caused injuries to different parts of his body.
The police identified the victim as Danilo Coles. He died in a hospital around 10: 30 Sunday pm after allegedly being beaten by his father and stepmother.
The suspects called the emergency line around 7: 30 pm on Sunday for help , assuring that the minor had fallen in the shower and was unconscious in an apartment located on the block 7000 of Wurzbach Street, northwest of the city.
The medical personnel who treated the victim determined that his injuries did not coincide with a fall. They explained that he had an opening in one eyebrow, had whip marks on his torso and legs, rectal bleeding, internal bleeding in the stomach, and “the skin was hanging from his buttocks”.
A San Antonio couple beat a 12-year-old boy and made him do push-ups and hold 50-pound boxes for hours before he lost consciousness and died at a hospital, according to police. https://t.co/3iY9C1E9Ro
—KSAT 10 (@ksatnews) February 8, 2022
Investigators said that, during the interrogation, the minor’s father and stepmother confessed that they subjected him to to a punishment for “disrespectful”.
The father, identified by the Police as Derrick Coles, of 32 years, testified that he slapped the boy so hard that his lip split open. He would then have forced her to do push-ups and carry boxes of approximately 50 pounds for about three to four hours.
The statement revealed that the minor was later sent to the shower, but he came out with an eye injury and said that he had fallen . He was then fed and later forced to write three pages with the phrase “I will obey all the people who live in this house”.
The punishment would not have ended there, because – according to the Police – the father forced the boy to do more push-ups and when he could no longer, he hit him with a belt about five or six times. The stepmother, identified as Kapri Cheaton, aged 27, would also have beaten the minor with the belt several more times.
The victim apparently suffered brain death from the beating and died shortly after from his injuries.
The stepfather and stepmother each face one count of intentionally causing serious bodily injury to a minor, according to magistrate records. The bail of each has been set at $150,000.