Five year-old Mercedes Losoya didn’t wet herself often, her mother said, until they moved in with Jose Ruiz. Then the terrified child had accident after accident, she said, magnifying the abuse inflicted on her for the three weeks before her death.
In a trial that has featured grisly details described by police, child welfare officials, and even the child’s six year-old sister — Thursday still brought new and disturbing narratives through the testimony of her mother, Katrina Mendoza.
After she would wet herself, Mendoza said, Ruiz would “mop the floor with her.”
“He would get her on the ground and drag her in her urine,” Mendoza said.
Ruiz would beat her with a belt and buckle, pull out her hair, and at times suffocate her until she passed out. He torture and humiliate her in other ways, like smearing dog feces on her face.
Mendoza said she let him do these things to her daughter for weeks before they finally moved out of his Vance Jackson apartment. By then, prosecutors have argued it was too late, that the girl would succumb to the weeks-long abuse just a few days later.
She died at Texas Vista Medical Center on Feb. 7, 2022.
Mendoza was arrested for the crime with Jose Ruiz. She pleaded guilty last summer to one count of assault of a child causing serious bodily injury by omission. She faces up to 45 years in prison.
Photos of the girl bruised, bandaged, bloodied and at times nude were found on his phone, say authorities — and presented to the jury. Losoya’s family members could be seen leaving the courtroom as they were presented.
One showed the girl standing in a shower with clothes stuffed in her mouth.
“You know what kind of clothing that is? asked Marissa Giovenco, a prosecutor.
“Her underwear and her shorts,” Mendoza said.
“Why would this happen to Mercedes?”
“She would be crying. Or maybe at that time, she had made an accident on herself,” Mendoza replied, again pointing the finger at Ruiz.
Ruiz’s attorney turned the questioning about child abuse on the mother, citing thousands of pages of Child Protective Services reports on the woman.
“Do you realize that there are 6,015 pages of CPS reports about you?” said Theresa Connolly, one of Ruiz’s attorneys.
She read portions of the original indictment against Mendoza, in whcih authorities said she jammed a spoon down the girl’s throat and force fed her. Another count accused her of holding the girl underwater.
Mendoza said these things weren’t true.
The jury had already seen a video of Jordynn Losoya, 6, Merecedes’ older sister, telling a forensic interviewer that her mother had shoved a spoon down her sister’s throat and the girl fell off a chair, striking her head against a lamp.
So if Jordan said that when you jammed the spoon down Mercedes throat, she fell on the floor from the chair she was in and didn't breathe again. She'd be lying?" Connolly asked.
“Yes,” Mendoza replied.
“Jordan’s a big liar and a cheat,” Connolly later said sarcastically.
And she asked if Mendoza had seen all this abuse, torture and even seen Ruiz nearly kill the girl another time, why didn’t she leave or turn him into the police.
“Because I was in love with him,” she replied.
