Yes

by David R. Chase

Created on: December 26, 2007   Last Updated: September 29, 2010

Seven-year old Zoe Garcia's mother was working when her daughter was brutally murdered.

On December 6, 2007, the little girl had been left in the care of her sixteen-year old half sister, Heather Trujillo, and Trujillo's seventeen-year old boyfriend, Lamar Roberts. The two teens, according to their story, had decided to reenact fight scenes from the game "Mortal Kombat" with Zoe, and they say the "play fighting" simply got out of hand.

She had begged them to stop hurting her, said a witness. The witness had done nothing to help the little girl, claiming that he was too drunk to have been effective.

According to the autopsy, Zoe's tiny body was covered in bruises; she suffered a broken wrist, swelling in her brain, and bleeding in her neck muscles and under her delicate, growing spine.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense can tell you that a pair of teens using violent martial arts moves on a protesting seven-year old are a couple of sick, twisted sub-humans. Some people will blame the video game, that's for sure - but where the real blame lies is with the two teens who were supposed to be taking care of the little girl.

Both Trujillo and Roberts have admitted to committing abusive atrocities; unfortunately, those atrocities led to the death of an innocent child. They did things to that little girl that would incapacitate a grown man, and that sickening specimen Roberts bragged to a friend that his hands were "lethal weapons." They sure were.

Trujillo and Roberts are being tried as adults, as they should be. The two have each been charged with felony child abuse causing death, which (if convicted) carries a 16- to 48-year prison sentence.

48 years? That's ALL? Zoe only got seven years; now she'll be gone forever. Forever is a long time compared to a measly 48-year prison sentence. Seven short years to live - and according to other reports, those seven years were filled with abuse, neglect, and terror. The maximum sentence that the two can receive seems like nothing when every day for that little girl must have seemed like an eternity.

Although the two perpetrators are now in jail (each is being held by a $100,000 bond), they're segregated from the rest of the adult population in an attempt to protect them.

Protecting the criminal teens? Who was there to protect little Zoe? Neighbors claimed that she would come to their house on occasion asking for food; teachers reported - on five separate occasions - that they had found bruises on her body... but no one did anything about it.

Before the family had moved to Colorado, where the murder took place, they had lived in New Mexico. According to Zoe's father, who had been embroiled in a bitter three-year custody battle over the little girl, New Mexican Social Services had removed Zoe and other children from her mother's home because of reported abuse. The children were eventually given back to their mother, but at least New Mexico was more on the ball than Colorado was.

The night that Zoe died, the two abhorrent teenagers kicked, punched, pinched, and slapped her. She lost consciousness at least once and they revived her long enough to get her in bed. When someone checked on her later (it isn't clear who), she had stopped breathing; they claim that they tried CPR and dousing her with cold water in an attempt to revive her once again.

Eventually they dialed 911 - but when the paramedics arrived on the scene, little Zoe Garcia was already dead.

Trujillo and Roberts should be thrown to the sharks, in my opinion. Put them in with the general population in prison and see how child killers get treated; it can't be any worse for them than it was for Zoe on the night that they brutally murdered her.

Charge the witness with something too - how can someone sit there and watch as a little child is being beaten to death and do NOTHING? Drunk or not, that useless person who witnessed the heinous crime should be held accountable for letting a little girl die in front of his very eyes.

Colorado has a death penalty, and only two people are currently sitting on Death Row. Looks to me like there's plenty of room for a couple of child killers in all those empty cells.

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