Mayra Corina Chavez appears in a booking photo from August 2022. (Orange County District Attorney's Office)
A California woman was convicted last week for brutally torturing her 10-year-old stepdaughter to the point that the little girl needed nearly 20 surgeries to try and correct the horrors inflicted upon her.
The case was described by one medical professional as one of the worst instances of traumatic child abuse they had ever seen, authorities said.
Mayra Corina Chavez, 33, was found guilty on Oct, 11 on one felony count of torture, two felony counts of child abuse and endangerment, one felony enhancement of causing great bodily injury, and one count of misdemeanor simple assault, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
In August 2022, Domingo Junior Flores, 33, brought his daughter, who weighed only 50 pounds at the time, to Children's Hospital of Orange County. She was unresponsive upon arrival. Flores allegedly told law enforcement and medical professionals that the child had hurt herself and then fallen down the stairs. The truth was much worse.
When the girl arrived at the hospital, she had a broken neck, a bone sticking out of an unhealed wound, and bruises covering almost every inch of her body, according to the district attorney's office.
Meanwhile, the girl's uncle Walter and aunt Levit, who are speaking to the press on a first-name-only basis, reported the abuse to authorities.
"You're hearing all of these details and it's gruesome," Walter said in comments to ABC Los Angeles station KABC. "You don't wish that upon anybody."
As emergency room staff worked to revive the little girl, both Flores and Chavez were arrested by the Anaheim Police Department.
"The details of unimaginable pain and suffering this little girl endured at the hands of her stepmother has brought the most experienced prosecutors, police officers, and hospital staff to tears," Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said after the verdict. "But this systematic and diabolical torture of child was normalized in her household."
An investigation turned up numerous zip ties throughout the family's apartment in Anaheim. Spitzer described how those common fasteners were turned into instruments of torture and terror.
"Hogtying her with zip ties and forcing her to kneel on tin cans for so long her chin had pressure wounds was as routine as reminding the other children to brush their teeth," the prosecutor explained in a press release. "She physically, mentally, and emotionally abused and humiliated this child for months and when that was not enough, she forced her other children to participate in the torture, forcing them to zip tie their sister to her bed frame and to ignore her cries for help."
"She underwent 17 surgeries for her knees, couldn't walk for nine months," Spitzer added in comments to the TV station.
During Chavez's recent trial, several witnesses documented how the 10-year-old was forced to kneel on raw rice and tin cans while zip-tied, the district attorney's office said. On at least one occasion, the girl was plunged face-first into a bathtub full of ice water while zip-tied. Once, the child was forced by her stepmother to bite into a habanero pepper that was then rubbed into her eyes and genitals.
The girl's three siblings, sobbing on the stand, recounted how Chavez enlisted them in the torture regime. After that, she forced them to watch.
"She is alive today as a result of the heroic efforts by CHOC to save her life," Spitzer said. "Child abuse cannot and will not be normalized. Horrific things happen behind closed doors."
According to the district attorney's office, Chavez's convictions also cover abuse that was meted out to another stepdaughter, her husband's 17-year-old son, and two of her own children.
A donation fund for the children is being administered by the Anaheim Family Justice Center.
"Everything you hear and everything that she went through – it's a miracle that she's here with us today," Levit told KABC. "I want her to be able to overcome this, and become an amazing person in the future because she's already an amazing child."
Deputy District Attorney Bethel Cope-Vega prosecuted the case.
In closing arguments, Cope-Vega told jurors that the since-condemned woman "systematically dehumanized" her victim, according to a courtroom report by The Orange County Register.
"She found ways to up the ante," Cope-Vega said. "She sat around thinking about new ways to torture."
Jurors deliberated for roughly five hours.
Chavez faces a maximum sentence of seven years to life in prison for the torture conviction. She faces up to 10 years in prison for the two child abuse convictions – and four months behind bars for the assault conviction. She is slated to be sentenced on Nov. 3.
Flores is awaiting trial on charges of one felony count of torture, two felony counts of child abuse and endangerment, one misdemeanor count of felony child abuse and endangerment, and one felony enhancement of causing great bodily injury.
