Mother’s Boyfriend Charged With Murder of Baby

A 21-year-old Santa Ana man was charged Thursday with beating to death his girlfriend’s 11-month-old daughter and battering her 5-year-old son, authorities said.

Steven Delgado, an insurance salesman, was being held in Orange County Jail on $250,000 bail. He was charged with the murder of Amanda Ortiz, whose badly bruised body was found Tuesday morning in her mother’s North Durant Street apartment, Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert C. Gannon Jr. said.

Delgado was also charged with willful cruelty toward the girl’s 5-year-old brother, who has been placed in protective custody in the Orangewood Children’s Home, the county’s emergency shelter for abused and abandoned children in Orange, authorities said.

Delgado’s attorney, Frederick L. McBride, said his client will enter an innocent plea at his Oct. 6 arraignment but declined further comment.

Manuel Ortiz, the children’s father, said he will try to regain custody of his son from his estranged wife, Elizabeth Ruiz, 23. The couple have been separated since March.

Ortiz said a hearing is scheduled today to determine custody for their son, whose name is being withheld.

Ortiz said the boy “is scared. He wants to come home. He tells me he does not want to end up like Amanda.”

Police said Delgado and Ruiz worked together at Liberty Mutual Insurance in Santa Ana. Neither police nor the district attorney’s office would comment on a motive, but Ortiz said Delgado considered the children to be obstacles in his relationship with their mother.

Ruiz did not return telephone calls requesting comment Thursday night.

Delgado was arrested by police Thursday morning after being questioned repeatedly as part of a two-day investigation that became “extremely complicated,” according to Santa Ana police spokeswoman Maureen Thomas.

Thomas said Delgado had been detained, released, then questioned again before charges were filed Thursday. But McBride said his client had been held since Tuesday.

The coroner’s report stated that Amanda Ortiz died from blows to the head and body, according to Thomas.

Amanda Ortiz is the third child known to have died from abuse in the county this year.

Ortiz, an auto-body repairman, complained that he had not been told of his daughter’s death until 14 hours after it had been reported to police and that coroner’s deputies had refused to let him view his daughter’s body.

“I will never forgive them for not telling me what happened,” he said. “I feel guilty. . . . I could have been at my son’s side, at least.”

Ortiz said he believes that neither child had been abused until the incident that resulted in Amanda’s death.

According to Ortiz, the incident happened when Delgado sent Ruiz down to the garage to get something. In her absence, Ortiz said, Delgado “took Amanda up, threw her to the floor, then against the wall, and hit her on the head. Then he hit (the boy) on his cheek and mouth and threatened to kill him and his mommy if he ever told anyone.”