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A father accused of killing his six-year-old son by sexually
assaulting him with a stick would allegedly pull his teeth out with
pliers and force him to sleep in a dog cage, a court heard.

Mauricio Alejandro Torres is alleged to have violated his son
Maurice 'Isaiah' Torres on a camping trip as a punishment for eating
a piece of cake without permission.

The youngster developed a bacterial infection and died of septic
shock the next day in March 2015.

A jury heard on Monday that the six-year-old's parents would
allegedly beat their son with cables and shoes and gave him coal in
his stocking at Christmas, according to the Arkansas Democrat
Gazette.

Torres pleaded not guilty to capital murder and battery over the
death of Maurice at Benton County Circuit Court in Arkansas.

Isaiah's 12-year-old sister testified at the trial, and claims she
witnessed her parents pulling her brother's teeth with pliers and
made him sleep in a dog cage.

She also says he was forced to stay in a large trash can for a month
while she would often act as guard so he wouldn't escape to eat
food.

The sister claims that she was fed home-cooked meals and would dine
in restaurants, while Isaiah was fed rice and beans.

She told the court she witnessed her father beating him with a stick
- and he also made her and her twin sister beat him too.

'I did it because I was afraid because I might get beat if I didn't
do it,' she told the court according to the news outlet.

Isaiah's birthday was never celebrated and he was given coal on
Christmas Day, she told the court.

She also told jurors she remembered her mother pouring bleach over
her brother while her father scrubbed his skin.

The boy was said to have been forced to squat while the stick was in
his rectum and his mother Cathy injured him further by pushing him
to the ground with it inside him.

She was handed a life sentence after pleading guilty to capital
murder in March 2017.

He was sentenced to death in November 2016 but his conviction was
overturned last April because the alleged assault with a stick
happened in Missouri and not Arkansas.

Capital murder offences that carry the death penalty must have taken
place in the state where the prosecution is being brought, according
to state law.

Torres now faces a retrial at Benton County Circuit Court in
Arkansas on Thursday after his original convictions were overturned
on this technicality.

He faces life imprisonment or death if convicted of the murder
charge and from five to 20 years in jail if he is convicted of
battery.

His original trial heard testimony from a medical examiner who
stated that Isaiah's death was caused by a bacterial infection from
being violated with the stick, the news outlet reports.

The medical examiner noted that Isaiah's nose was broken and
several teeth had been pulled out and he had numerous old and fresh
wounds on his head.

Prosecutors used allegations of other instances of child abuse
committed by Torres in Arkansas as grounds for the retrial on the
murder charge.

At the opening of the trial last week, the prosecution set out the
horrific details of the case.


'He suffered chronic child abuse syndrome. The pictures you will see
are ugly, grotesque.'

Smith alleged Isaiah had been abused for two years before his death
and in March 2015, when he was 'inflicted a death blow', he added.

During the first trial it emerged Arkansas' Department of Human
Services investigated allegations of child abuse against Torres and
his wife twice, a year before the death of their son.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8074313/Arkansas-father- accused-raping-son-death-stick.html

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