Editor’s note: This story contains graphic descriptions of child abuse.
Mercedes Losoya was nearly 6 years old when her body finally gave out. Testimony and documents presented at Tuesday’s trial over who was responsible showed she had endured abuse, the kind most only have nightmares of.
Instead of running and playing outside, sharp tacks were pushed into the bottom of her feet.
Instead of affection, witnesses described her beaten with belts. Her autopsy showed she had a fractured skull, her scalp was missing hair and her body was covered in bruises.
“In this case you’re going to have to see things that no one should ever have to see…let alone that a child at the age of five should have to endure,” said Marissa Giovenco, assistant district attorney.
The source of some of that abuse was detailed by Mercedes' older sister, Jordynn Losoya.
The little girl’s high-pitched voice pierced the 187th District Court room as she told of her mother’s beatings of Mercedes and about the time that Ruiz slapped Mercedes so hard her teeth came out.
The recorded conversation took place in a forensic interview shortly after the death of her sister in Feb. 2022.
“Tell me everything about that,” said a male social worker from ChildSafe in a gentle sing-song patter.
The soft question was a terrible refrain for graphic details that were commonplace to the girl.
“My mom started stepping on her feet and then she got little tiny things right there…and then Jose started putting thumbtacks in her feet,” she said.
“Tell me everything you remember about that,” he said.
“She was in the closet — and then she peed on herself, and Jose said lick the pee and then she licked it and then she smelled like pee and then Jose started putting thumbtacks,” she said.
Prosecutors in this case argue that the arbiter of much of that abuse was Jose Angel Ruiz, 27, the boyfriend of Mercedes’ mother.
Losoya’s mother, Katrina Mendoza, relied on Ruiz, said prosecutors, to discipline what they said she called “the bad child.” Family members said in previous interviews that Mendoza complained about the child and said the girl just wouldn’t listen to her.
“Give her to me, she’ll listen to me,” the prosecutor said Ruiz told the mother.
Not long after, the girl would die.
Two years later, Ruiz sat in court, stone-faced with eight charges and a possible life sentence hanging over him.
Lawyers for Ruiz opened their case attempting to point the finger back at Mendoza — who pleaded to a lesser charge — and is on the witness list to testify against the man.
They also raised the question of the culpability of Child Protective Services (CPS) in the death.
"CPS investigated Katrina for years,” said Theresa Connolly, one of Ruiz’s attorneys.
Later she noted that the state had no record of child abuse on Ruiz prior to this case. Connolly went on to reference the failure of multiple institutions to save the girl.
“SAPD did not save this child,” she said. “There were piles of reports,” said Connolly.
Prosecutors interrupted Connolly, objecting several times, to her opening statement as well as other questions around the failures of CPS in earlier investigations — since the investigators in those cases weren’t present.
According to Gustavo Cervantes, a nurse at the former Texas Vista Medical Center the night of Mercedes’ death, Mendoza ran into the building, screaming “Save my baby!”
But the testimony indicated the act of taking her into the hospital came long after the girl had collapsed.
Prosecutors noted that Mendoza forwent multiple closer hospitals and emergency rooms on the North Side and took her instead miles across town to Texas Vista, previously on the city’s Southwest Side.
“She needed to go to the nearest facility,” said Cervantes.
The child had bruises all over, “literally head to toe, front and back,” he testified.
Reading from triage notes into the record, he said:
“Child was noticed to have generalized bruising over body, posteriorly and inferiorly. Along with scratches…missing areas of hair on head…wounds to her feet. And missing toenails on two toes of the left foot,” he read. “Child had food in mouth still on arrival. Mom said she was feeding the child when she passed out and hit head on lamp. She propped up child and continued to feed her.”
According to the forensic interview with Jordynn Losoya, her mother had fed the girl who kept spitting up the food. And she pushed the spoon deep inside the girl's throat. The girl passed out or fell and hit her head.
San Antonio Police were called based on the appearance of Mercedes Losoya’s body.
“She was attempting to appear very upset. But I do not feel, based off my experience, that she was legitimately upset,” said Ryan Cahill, the responding SAPD officer that night.
Ruiz told Cahill that Mendoza and her children had lived with him in his apartment on Vance Jackson for some amount of time — the two dated for around a year off and on — but he told police she had moved a month prior. The body camera footage was presented to the jury.
Anthony Adame, CPS special investigator, would contradict Ruiz’s timeline, saying he had collected information showing Mendoza and the girls lived there until recently, “a matter of days.”
Ruiz said that he hadn’t seen the girl in several days and really didn't know what had happened.
The timelines will likely play an important role as to whose abuse caused the girl's death.
Ruiz was arrested on the night of the death as a result of having a firearm, despite being barred from it.
Judge Stephanie Boyd announced at the end of the first day of testimony that the jury should expect to be in trial going into next week.
