A Tiny Coffin : Funeral Held for Little Refugee Who Found Death Instead of Family

When 8-year-old Alva Azusena Flores left war-torn El Salvador and came to the United States in August, she was in search of a family.

Her father, a soldier in the Salvadoran army, was killed by guerrillas in 1981 when she was a month old. The same year, her mother left Alva in the care of a grandmother and headed north to start a new life in Los Angeles.

On May 11, nine months after she arrived here to live with her mother, Alva’s sexually abused, battered and burned body was discovered in a San Pedro park. Six days later, Alva’s mother, Natividad Flores, 26, and her live-in boyfriend, Alejandro Lara, 29, of Mexico, were charged with murder in connection with the girl’s death.

On Friday, a modest Spanish-language funeral service was held for Alva at Ascension Catholic Church in Los Angeles. Her burial was paid for by officials of the Los Angeles City Attorney Victim Witness Assistance Program--friends she never met in life.

Among the two dozen neighbors and sympathizers who attended the funeral service was Alva’s aunt, Theresa Flores, who wept through a sermon by Father Ed Sattinger on the mystery of life and death.

“A seed must fall to the ground and die before it can bear fruit,” Sattinger said, standing beside Alva’s small, gray, wooden casket. “So too, we must die at our appointed hour in order to be raised again in his glory.”

An hour later, the little girl who came from the small agricultural coastal village of Usulutan, El Salvador, was buried at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Culver City. There, Sattinger closed a prayer service by pressing a small metal cross into Theresa Flores’ trembling palm.

Gregoria Zapata was one of the sympathizers from her neighborhood south of downtown who came to lay bouquets from their own gardens on the tiny casket.

“This is horrible,” said Zapata, wiping tears from her eyes as she led her four children to the grave on a grassy knoll in a section of cemetery called Holy Innocents. “I watch my children much more closely now.”

Police investigators believe that Alva was never accepted by her new family, which included a 7-year-old sister and a 3-year-old brother born and reared in this country. Instead, she was treated as an outcast, shunned, screamed at and beaten almost daily, authorities said.

Neighbors could recall only glimpses of the shy, slender girl who was kept out of school and rarely allowed outdoors. Sitting alone on the front porch steps of a modest triplex bungalow, her sullen expression drew no response but pity.

“She had a such a pretty little face,” recalled next-door neighbor Anjela Madero, 63. “But they hit her a lot.”

‘She Looked Sad’

“I saw her once on the front porch steps,” said neighbor Olivia Uribe, 19. “She looked sad, like she was scared.”

Flores and Lara, who operated a lunch truck business, were arrested largely on the basis of conflicting statements they made to police investigators, evidence collected at the park and at their home and preliminary autopsy results, authorities said. The two are being held without bail.

Police investigators said information suggests that Alva was the victim of prolonged sexual and physical abuse that ended between 10 p.m. and midnight May 10. That night, police believe she was beaten and strangled in the bathroom as her little sister, Silvana, stood nearby, said Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. Ryan Rainey.

Silvana and her little brother have been placed in protective custody, authorities said.

“Both parents participated equally in the murder,” Rainey said. “There were repeated blows to different parts of her body. Death was due to strangulation.”

Doused With Gasoline

A third person, Lara’s 25-year-old brother, Martin Lopez, has been charged with assisting the couple by dousing Alva’s body with gasoline as part of an attempt to cover up her identity, Rainey said.

Flores, Lara and Lopez have pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Detective Ben Gonzalez, officer in charge of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Child Abuse Unit, cited statistics showing a disturbing increase in child abuse in Los Angeles over the last year.

Gonzalez said there were 4,921 reported incidents of child abuse committed by parents or guardians in 1988. By comparison, there were 4,260 such cases reported the year before. Responding to the increase, the Police Department has added five officers to the unit, for a total of 28.

“Each child abuse case reported is a tragedy, if not to the family, to society in general,” Gonzalez said.