A UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital nurse testified this week that a woman accused of joining her then-boyfriend in physically abusing the Lancaster woman’s 10-year-old son appeared to fake being emotional and was in the waiting room instead of at her child’s bedside when the boy died of his injuries in 2018.
Priscilla Cabunoc told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta that she has seen hundreds of sick or injured children die while she has been on the job and that Heather Maxine Barron, the mother of the late Anthony Avalos, was one of the few who were not present in the hospital room when the child passed away.
In the other cases the parents were out of the area or could not be present for legitimate reasons, Cabunoc said.
The nurse testified that Barron earlier spent about 10 minutes with her son before his death, then asked if she could be excused to the waiting room. Barron spoke with a slur and her concerns for her son seemed feigned, according to Cabunoc.
“To me it looked like she was forcing herself to have some type of emotions,” Cabunoc said.
None of the boy’s relatives were present when he died, although one of his aunts entered his room a short time later, Cabunoc said. Barron did not go back into the room until about an hour and 15 minutes later, according to Cabunoc.
Barron, now 33, and her ex-live-in boyfriend, Kareem Ernesto Leiva, now 37, are each charged with one count of murder and torture involving Anthony’s June 2018 death, along with two counts of child abuse involving two of the boy’s half-siblings, identified in court only as “Destiny O.” and “Rafael O.”
The murder count includes the special circumstance allegation of murder involving the infliction of torture.
Over the objection of Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office dropped its bid for the death penalty against the two after the 2020 election of District Attorney George Gascón, who issued a directive that “a sentence of death is never an appropriate resolution in any case.”
Barron and Leiva now face a maximum of life in prison without the possibility of parole if they are convicted as charged.
