KEY POINTS

  • A couple has been charged for the torture and murder of their 4-year-old son.
  • The father reportedly raped the child as well.

The parents of 4-year-old Noah Cuatro informed the police that he had been found unresponsive in the apartment complex pool. Coroners rubbished the claims made by the child's parents, Jose Maria Cuatro Junior and Ursula Elaine Juarez. It was discovered that the child had been abused for months before he was brutally murdered by his own parents in Palmdale, California.

Noah had been removed from the custody of his abusive parents multiple times during his short life. Since 2014, Noah was shuffled between foster homes, his great-grandmother's home, and his parents' home.

Noah was first removed from the care of his parents in 2014 and put in a foster home. After a short stay there, he was handed over to his great-grandmother, Eva Hernandez. In 2015, he was again taken back to the home of his abusers. Medical neglect by his parents led to another stay at a foster home in 2016, before staying with Hernandez once more.

Toddler burned by hot glue gun
A couple has been charged for the torture and murder of their 4-year-old son, the father allegedly raped the child before his death as well. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The court allowed Noah to be returned to his parents in 2018. Continued neglect by his parents led to intervention from the Department of Children and Family Services in May 2019. Social service workers received an unverified tip that Noah was being sexually assaulted. They sought court permission to remove him from his parents' custody.

Two weeks after social services visited Noah in June 2019, he was murdered by his parents. On July 6, his parents called 911 and claimed that the child was found unresponsive in the swimming pool. The Sun reported that Noah died at a hospital the next day. The hospital staff found injuries to the child's body which were inconsistent with his parents' claims. A post mortem report indicated that the death was a homicide.

Los Angeles Times reported that the Los Angeles County district charged the couple. The father faces one count of assault on a child causing death, one count of sexual penetration of a child under the age of 10, one count of murder, and one count of torture. The mother also faces one count of murder and one count of torture along with one count of child abuse under circumstances likely to cause death.

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