Jose Angel Ruiz didn’t react when the jury found him guilty of all eight counts in the child abuse death of 5-year-old Mercedes Losoya. He cried only when the punishment phase of the trial began and he heard his sobbing mother Irene testify about him and the abuse he endured as a child.
A few of the abuses inflicted on him by his stepfather mirrored those experienced by the girl he was convicted of killing. Many did not.
The descriptions of the abuse that defense attorneys may consider extenuating, proved unconvincing for the jury who sentenced him to life in prison.
Mercedes Losoya died at Texas Vista Medical Center on Feb. 7, 2022. Two medical examiners testified during the trial that she died after rhabdomyolysis caused her kidneys to stop working.
The condition results from damaged muscle releasing toxic protein into the blood. In Losoya’s case, that was because she had experienced profound physical abuse.
“This child suffered trauma,” testified Dr. Rajesh Kannan, who conducted her autopsy, on Monday. “It’s extensive. From top to bottom. All over the body.”
The condition doesn’t have to be fatal, if addressed immediately. The girl had been sick for days leading up to her death — vomiting and fatigue are often associated with the condition.
Ruiz beat the girl over the course of the months-long relationship with Mercedes' mother, said prosecutors. That abuse increased dramatically the three weeks the girl lived in his home, along with her sister Jordynn and her mother Katrina Mendoza.
Under a mask of “discipline,” according to testimony, he beat the girl with a belt with a buckle and with his fists.
Witnesses testified that he made the girl stand on thumbtacks and pulled out her hair. He humiliated the girl by wiping feces on her face and “mopping the floor with her” when she urinated on herself. Her mother Mendoza said that happened with increasing frequency after they moved in with the man.
Ruiz’s lawyers were unable to convince the jury that it was Mendoza who abused the girl. They said that the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) — who had investigated the family for abuse and neglect multiple times — also bore some responsibility.
"We know that he hit that girl, again and again. And that little girl cried out for help, and, unfortunately, she did not get that help. CPS is not on trial. Police are not on trial. Jose Ruiz is on trial. We ask that you don't lose sight of that,” said Brittany Mitchell with the Bexar County District Attorney’s office.
They didn’t, and now Ruiz has been sentenced to life in prison.
Katrina Mendoza, Mercedes’ mother, pleaded guilty to one count of assault on a child by omission. She faced as much as 45 years in prison.
Initially, Mendoza was charged with multiple counts, and her family had expressed concern about her abuse of the child months prior to the child's death. The family moved several times over the preceding year, and DFPS was unable to find the family on several occasions.
