A jury was shown heartbreaking footage of a starving Texas boy begging his father for bread just days before he died of starvation.
The clip was one of more than 30 videos, including cellphone footage and surveillance recordings, shown in court Monday in Brandon Cervera’s trial. The 31-year-old is accused of starving his four-year-old son, Benjamin, to death and faces life in prison if convicted.
Clips show Benjamin searching for food, eating fruit, cookies, Jello, and milk late at night (
KSAT12)
Other clips presented by the prosecution show Benjamin searching for food, eating fruit, cookies, Jello, and milk late at night. But with time locks were installed on cabinets and the fridge, making it harder to him to eat, the footage revealed.
Detective Lawrence Saiz of the San Antonio Police Department testified that the cellphone videos were obtained from the boy’s stepmother’s phone, along with surveillance footage from cameras inside the apartment that were kept by Brandon Cervera, KSAT.com reported.
Jurors were also presented with cruel text messages in which Brandon told his ex-wife Miranda Casarez, 25: “He don’t need to eat dinner” and told her to just give the child bread after she told him he had been begging all day. In addition to allegedly starving the poor child, surveillance footage shows Benjamin crying while trapped in his nearly empty bedroom, which he shared with his brother.
Benjamin was the only family member who did not have a bed and he was forced to sleep on a mattress with a urine-soaked blanket. As they were shown the horrifying videos, some jurors could be seen looking away or shaking their heads in response to the graphic content. Cervera, however, remained stone faced throughout.
The defense has tried to discredit the autopsy report and said that Molina’s findings were misleading. But pediatrician James Lukefahr, who treated the boy at the hospital where he died, also said the boy was underweight for his age and agreed with Molina’s ruling.
Earlier in the trial jurors were shown shocking bodycam where Cervera and Casarez are seen during a welfare check by officers, stating that their son was inflicting injuries on himself. Brandon explains that his son “pokes his eyes and he pokes his ears.”
Earlier this year, Casarez received a 25-year sentence for her role in abusing Benjamin, with moments of her narrative captured on the same upsetting police footage, reports the Mirror. “He has behavioral issues,” she explained. “He gets up at night and he goes into the kitchen and eats.”
