Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more!
Video Allegedly Shows 4-Year-Old Begging Dad For Bread, Water Before Starving To Death
Benjamin Cervera, age four, was allegedly taped begging his father Brandon Lee Cervera for water and food. The elder Cervera has now been arrested for the child's death.
Video footage allegedly shows a 4-year-old Texas child desperately begging his father for bread and water before his death.
That father, 28-year-old Brandon Lee Cervera was arrested on Thursday in connection with the August death of his 4-year-old son Benjamin Cervera, Fox29 in San Antonio reports. Cervera has been booked on an injury to a child charge with the intent to cause serious bodily injury, a first degree felony, according to online jail records.
Little Benjamin Cervera was brought to the emergency room of the Children's Hospital of San Antonio in August covered in bruises, according to an arrest report obtained by Fox29. The child, who was close to his 5th birthday, was also only wearing a disposable diaper, local outlet KABB reports.
A nurse, who was immediately suspicious of the injuries as well as Benjamin’s emaciated body, called police. By the time they arrived, Benjamin was dead.
Brandon Cervera claimed that the wounds on his son’s body — which were allegedly in various stages of healing — were self-inflicted. However, an autopsy determined that the wounds were likely the result of physical abuse, according to the arrest report.
Cellphone footage taken by a family member and now in the hands of police allegedly showed the boy’s father denying the child food as the boy “shaking uncontrollably, crying, and begging for bread and water,” according to police documents obtained by KABB. Other footage allegedly shows the child being forced to “eat bread crumbs off the bathroom floor without the use of his hands” as well as being forced to drink hand sanitizer.
According to KABB, the boy was “begging for water while crying and waving his hand in front of his mouth saying it was burning" after being made to consume hand sanitizer.
Brandon’s bond has been set at $500,000, online records show. He is scheduled to appear before a judge for a preliminary hearing on March 29. It's not clear if he has a lawyer.
