Indiana parents, Luis Posso and Dayan Median Flores arrested after 12 year old boy Eduardo is starved to death, abused, and shackled along with an electric dog collar being used.
A 12 year old Indiana boy has died after allegedly being starved and abused by his parents who chained him up and used a dog training shock collar.
Luis Posso, 33, and his wife, Dayan Median Flores, 26, were charged Friday with felony neglect of Possos’ son Eduardo at the family home in Monroe County.
Notice of the child’s gross abuse came after staff at Bloomington Hospital called investigators with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office following Eduardo’s death, last Friday.
WTHR reported that the coroner said he was severely emaciated, with the 12 year old boy weighing just 50-55 pounds with zero percent body fat. His body was also covered in bruises. The average ‘healthy weight’ for a 12 year old boy is circa 90 pounds.
Three other children in Posso and Flores’ care, who were found to be healthy and were placed with child protective services, the statement said.
Posso and Flores work as promoters for a circus that tours around the country.
They had been staying with all four children at a motel in Monroe County prior to the 12 year old boy’s starvation death the dailymail reported.
Posso drove Eduardo to the hospital after he stopped breathing, Lieutenant Jennifer Allen said.
Eduardo’s sister and two stepbrothers, ages 9, 5 and 2, were placed in the care of Child Protection Services. None of them were enrolled in school.
It wasn’t immediately understood how the other children also didn’t come to be starved or emaciated and how the 12 year old seemingly was singled out.
Luis Posso & Dayan Median Flores deny starving boy while conceding physically abusing him:
During a search of the motel room, officials found wrist and ankle restraints, chains and a dog training shock collar. It was revealed the boy was systematically shackled to a bathroom door.
Investigators said they found images on a cell phone of the 12 year old boy in restraints with a dog shock collar on his neck in the bathtub.
Posso and Flores denied starving Eduardo but admitted that they physically abused him as he ‘acted up more than the other kids,’ according to investigators.
A death that could’ve been avoided? How did the fate of a 12 year old boy evade family, friends, school and child protection authorities?
A spokesperson for the school district of Manatee County told Fox59 that Eduardo was withdrawn from the district to be home schooled in December 2018.
He had been in and out of school there since 2012. Eduardo’s mother, Aurea Esmeralda Garcia, told the outlet that she believed her son was in Florida with her ex and Flores.
She claimed she didn’t have custody and hadn’t been able to see or talk to her children.
The last time Garcia and her brother, Jorge Omar, saw Eduardo was in 2017 and they have footage of him laughing and cooking in their kitchen.
Garcia told Fox59: ‘When the police said, “Can we walk inside of your house and talk to you?”, I knew something was wrong because they’re not normal to do that.
‘I want to see him. I want to kiss him, however he is, and tell him I’m sorry. I did everything I could, but nothing worked.’
She said she believed something was wrong and that she and other family members tried to raise the alarm in Florida.
She added: ‘You don’t even do that to an animal, chain it up like that and abuse it the way he was abused.
‘No one will listen, and this happens now. Now my son is dead,’ Garcia added.
It remained unclear what action authorities in Florida or Indiana took as efforts to contact child protection agencies were purportedly made.
A slow painful death that was allowed to happen:
Monroe County Sheriff Brad Swain said the boy likely suffered a slow and painful death.
‘I cannot think of, in 30 years, a case like this. It’s beyond anything I’ve worked,’ Swain said.
‘Everybody involved with this case has been very deeply affected and will be affected until the end of our career, let alone the end of our lives. I mean, there’s really no words for this type of abuse.’
Posso and Flores are each being held on $500,000 bond in the Monroe County Jail.
