GUILTY TX - Alfred & Abneris Santiago for starving, abusing 3 kids, Dallas, 2009

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/20148076/detail.html



Officers responded to a call by the bio mother to gather her "things" from the hotel room; the call was precipitated by the woman's brother and her familys concern for her.

Officers entered the room and found three horribly emaciated children in a back bathroom-11, 10 and 5 years of age. The couple renting the room had a healthy 1 year old who was found in a crib. The children told a horrifying tale of starvation, beatings and sexual abuse while the children's mother was working.
:behindbar:behindbar:behindbar:behindbar:behindbar:behindbar:behindbar

Give them to me-the children I mean. I could give a rat's *advertiser censored** about the adults, but let me take those precious little ones and let them know that they can in fact be loved and cherished.

Three cheers for the uncle and the children's bio grandmom who tracked them all down and forced the rescue of the little ones....

believe09 said:

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/20148076/detail.html



Officers responded to a call by the bio mother to gather her "things" from the hotel room; the call was precipitated by the woman's brother and her familys concern for her.

Officers entered the room and found three horribly emaciated children in a back bathroom-11, 10 and 5 years of age. The couple renting the room had a healthy 1 year old who was found in a crib. The children told a horrifying tale of starvation, beatings and sexual abuse while the children's mother was working.
:behindbar:behindbar:behindbar:behindbar:behindbar:behindbar:behindbar

Give them to me-the children I mean. I could give a rat's *advertiser censored** about the adults, but let me take those precious little ones and let them know that they can in fact be loved and cherished.

Three cheers for the uncle and the children's bio grandmom who tracked them all down and forced the rescue of the little ones....

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This is just too much.I fell like throwing up,this man needs some good old boy justice,bring him to my house for a while and i will gladly take care of him.

I loose faith in humanity more and more everyday.

Things like this just break my heart. I pray that these children get the emotional and physical help they need to get better.

I'm with you nurselady, let me at him!!!!

This is just horrible. The kids will carry this horrible ordeal with them forever, bless their hearts. I hope the boyfriend spends the rest of his life in jail. I pray for these kids and hope they will find someone to love and take care of them. The mother should be charged also. IMO

This is why I have decided that if, God forbid, something were to happen to my husband, I would not bring another man into my children's lives.

Would she have kept them in there forever? How very Flowers in the Attic. Only the mother didn't even have greed as a motive. She just had forsaken her kids for "love." I will never understand how love for a significant other can trump love for the children you brought into this world. Never.

I wonder how long they'll get. To me, it's akin to murder. Not only did these kids lose part of their lives, but I can't imagine that they won't be irreperably damaged by this ordeal.

MomofBoys said:

This is why I have decided that if, God forbid, something were to happen to my husband, I would not bring another man into my children's lives.

Would she have kept them in there forever? How very Flowers in the Attic. Only the mother didn't even have greed as a motive. She just had forsaken her kids for "love." I will never understand how love for a significant other can trump love for the children you brought into this world. Never.

I wonder how long they'll get. To me, it's akin to murder. Not only did these kids lose part of their lives, but I can't imagine that they won't be irreperably damaged by this ordeal.

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I'm right there with you. I trust my own judgement enough, but I always say that if something happened to my husband, I'd just concentrate on raising my little ones on my own and not bring a partner into my life until they are fully grown and out of the house...you just never know anymore.

As for these poor little babies, thank goodness their uncle tracked them down! I'm disgusted at their mother's actions and I agree that she needs to be in jail right along side her (insert expletive) partner. In some ways, I believe she's MORE at fault because they're her children and it's her responsibility to keep them safe. I just want to cry for those children. Hopefully they'll get the help they need and the grandma/uncle can give them the love they have been missing these past few years.

TheMeaningOfItAll said:

As for these poor little babies, thank goodness their uncle tracked them down! I'm disgusted at their mother's actions and I agree that she needs to be in jail right along side her (insert expletive) partner. In some ways, I believe she's MORE at fault because they're her children and it's her responsibility to keep them safe. I just want to cry for those children. Hopefully they'll get the help they need and the grandma/uncle can give them the love they have been missing these past few years.

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The uncle is the hero. His first and only concern was the children -- as it should be.

believe09: Three cheers for the uncle and the children's bio grandmom who tracked them all down and forced the rescue of the little ones....

I sooo agree....He is a hero.:rose:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...floyd_23met.ART.Central.Edition1.4bc3a2d.html

Uncle's intervention likely saved abused Dallas kids

12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, July 23, 2009

It's hard to find a hero in a sick story about the torture and starvation of children.

It's crazy to look at three kids held prisoner for months in the dirty bathroom of a cheap motel room and see any evidence of good fortune in their young lives.

Yet in one respect, these children – bruised, filthy and traumatized as they were – had a little piece of luck.

There was somebody out there who cared enough about them to ask questions and, dissatisfied with the evasive answers, drive 1,200 miles to find out what the hell was going on.

The children – an 11-year-old girl and her two brothers, 6 and 10 – were rescued early this month when their uncle, Abner Santiago, made a marathon drive from Cleveland to Dallas to check up on them.

What he found made him sick.

Frail and emaciated as famine victims, the kids had been starved and beaten, police say, by their mother's boyfriend, Alfred Santiago (who shares the same last name as his girlfriend's family, but is not related). The boyfriend, police say, had been raping the little girl regularly.

The children's mother, who worked six days a week while her boyfriend "cared for" the kids, had been unwilling or unable to stop him.

"I thought something was wrong, but I never imagined anything close to this," said Abner Santiago, who has returned to his family and job in Ohio while police and child-welfare workers sort out the case against his sister and her boyfriend. "God, I just wish I'd gone sooner."

They can't lock this monster up long enough.

In an interview from jail, Alfred Santiago said he did nothing wrong and he considers himself the victim. He said the three children were a danger to his daughter and accused them of pouring urine on the baby.
"The one who is being disrespected right now is I, because I'm the one who's being abused," he told The Dallas Morning News. "What I was doing is protecting my baby daughter from her kids. What I did was I did not leave my daughter out of my sight."
He also told the newspaper that the children were to blame for their poor health because of their refusal to eat "mountains of rice, of chicken, of pork chops, of hot dogs."
"They were skinny because they were not eating the food," he said. "I'm not ashamed to say it, I was feeding them, but they were not eating their food."

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,534647,00.html?test=latestnews

OMG!!! You know, I drive by houses and apartments, and I always say a prayer for any children or adults that are living in He!! inside. I can't believe the neighbors never heard or suspected anything. Those poor kids must have been completely terrorized. This satement about the Mother sort of pizzes me off, however:

""She just had a history of making poor judgments about her male companions," Jamison said. "I think ultimately the evidence will show that this man was controlling her and controlling the children."

WTF??? It is like saying "She had a history of making poor choices in colors that were flattering to her skin tone. I think ultimately, the evidence will show that she had very poor choices in colors due to the lack of variety in the stores she was shopping in". I mean COME ON!!!! :banghead::banghead::banghead: I am a Mother, and there is NO amount of ANYTHING on this earth that would force me to allow my children to live like that - especially not some worthless, pathetic excuse for a human being that was masquerading as a "man". :furious:

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/20148076/detail.html

What a sad story.

Police say mom had chances to help kids locked in Love Field area hotel bathroom

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/072209dnmetabusecase.41c175b.html

~snip~

A doctor's report said the children were severely underweight and suffered from life-threatening malnourishment. The 11-year-old girl weighed 59 pounds; the 10-year-old boy, 58 pounds; and the 6-year-old boy, 29 pounds.
Police say Abneris Santiago knew that the children were starving and failed to do enough about it.

"Any reasonable person could see that the [children] were in immediate need of medical care," a police affidavit says. Abneris Santiago "stated that she was aware that the accomplice was not feeding the complainant and her siblings because 'they were not his responsibility.' "


Alfred Santiago "The suspect went to work daily and had ample opportunity to seek help and medical care for the [children]," the affidavit says. "The suspect failed to seek medical attention."

Jamison said his client acted when she could.

"If she has to end up in jail, and the children have to be placed with relatives, she's willing to accept that just as the consequence of being able to get away from this man," he said.

~snip~

Bless the Uncle for coming and saving them. They would still be locked in the bathroom.

I have no words that I can write here about the so called mother and her 'monster man'.

I do hope the children will know nothing but love and caring from now on. If anyone ever needed a rescuing angel, these children did. Now what they need is a guardian angel and lots of love.

GB these little ones.

I'm sorry, but I have no sympathy for this mother. The maternal instinct is a powerful thing and she chose a filthy over that. Shame on her and God help those babies.

nurselady said:

This is just too much.I fell like throwing up,this man needs some good old boy justice,bring him to my house for a while and i will gladly take care of him.

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By no definition should this woman be called a "mother." A REAL mother would throw herself in front of a speeding vehicle for her children...a real mother would have packed up those kids and given that creep a hard knee to the jewels as she walked out the door!

No doubt the defense attornies are already preparing the "I was a victim too" defense.

I do not understand women that allow these things to happen. I would kill for my children and not even bat an eyelash.

Thinaire said:

By no definition should this woman be called a "mother." A REAL mother would throw herself in front of a speeding vehicle for her children...a real mother would have packed up those kids and given that creep a hard knee to the jewels as she walked out the door!

No doubt the defense attornies are already preparing the "I was a victim too" defense.

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If I were on a jury with what little I know, I still say BS. She goes out works a job while he stays at the motel "babysitting", I call it freeloading all the while beating and raping her daughter. The woman had every oppertunity to call the police from work, tell someone at work, do something to intervene on behalf of her children but she chose not to as evidenced by the condition the children were found in.
This woman was a willing participant in the rape and torture of her 3 children, just as if she did it herself. God help her because if I were on that jury, I'd hang her.JMO.

TheMeaningOfItAll said:

I'm right there with you. I trust my own judgement enough, but I always say that if something happened to my husband, I'd just concentrate on raising my little ones on my own and not bring a partner into my life until they are fully grown and out of the house...you just never know anymore.

As for these poor little babies, thank goodness their uncle tracked them down! I'm disgusted at their mother's actions and I agree that she needs to be in jail right along side her (insert expletive) partner. In some ways, I believe she's MORE at fault because they're her children and it's her responsibility to keep them safe. I just want to cry for those children. Hopefully they'll get the help they need and the grandma/uncle can give them the love they have been missing these past few years.

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On the other hand, there are so many wonderful men out there doing a terrific job at raising their step-children. I am fortunate enough to be married to one of them. We married when my oldest childest were 8 and 4 and then had two more daughters. Never has he shown any favoritism between the children and I have no doubt of how much he loves every one of them. I know that many children are raised in single parent families and turn out happy and well-adjusted. But I also think that it is best if they are able to have two parents to turn to during times of need. Certainly, any parent, male OR female needs to exercise extreme caution when deciding to marry.:blowkiss:

That said, I HATE this mother!!!! No way this should have happened to these poor babies!

I'm not so sure the Uncle had anything to do with the kids being found. My local texas paper reported that the mother called, and her attorney credited her with having courage (yeah right). It seemed as if the uncle was called afterward and had his mouth agape at hearing of the circumstances. The family said that, I believe, a grandma had pretty much raised these kids and they all were worried after the mom took up with Abner. One whole year went by after that. The kids were so malnourished that they vomited when CPS workers tried to feed them some food. Were there not any calls to authorities or calls from the crap mom of the year to let anyone in her family know where she was, there was a new baby on the way, etc. ? I figure these people were collecting foodstamps on these kids plus WIC on the baby the whole time. I don't think Texas calls and checks on school attendance with foodstamps, only TANF, but not positive.

txsvicki said:

I'm not so sure the Uncle had anything to do with the kids being found. My local texas paper reported that the mother called, and her attorney credited her with having courage (yeah right). It seemed as if the uncle was called afterward and had his mouth agape at hearing of the circumstances. The family said that, I believe, a grandma had pretty much raised these kids and they all were worried after the mom took up with Abner. One whole year went by after that. The kids were so malnourished that they vomited when CPS workers tried to feed them some food. Were there not any calls to authorities or calls from the crap mom of the year to let anyone in her family know where she was, there was a new baby on the way, etc. ? I figure these people were collecting foodstamps on these kids plus WIC on the baby the whole time. I don't think Texas calls and checks on school attendance with foodstamps, only TANF, but not positive.

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I see your point but I guess my understanding of the story was that Gma dispatched Uncle to go and get all of them or to at least see what was going on. My suspicion is that mom called the police because of the imminent arrival of her brother and knowing what he would find, she opted to pull the trigger herself.,..JMO