Teen Recounts Years of Physical Abuse

Jose Antonio Esquivel is 13, barely tall enough to be seen over the witness stand where he sat Monday and described a life of hard work, intimidation and violence.

He stared off into the distance as he remembered the day his father, Marcos Esquivel, beat and kicked his 18-month-old sister, Guadalupe, hurled her into a tub of cold water and fatally slammed her against a wall because she wet the bed. He said his father made him take the blame for the killing, then helped surreptitiously bury the girl in the same swath of woods where he and his siblings had played one day.

Jose Antonio searched for words to describe the state of his 5-year-old brother, Ernesto, who suffered daily beatings with a metal wire and a broomstick because he couldn’t speak properly. He testified that last September his brother’s eyes were so swollen from the beatings he couldn’t see, he couldn’t move his arms because they were broken, couldn’t stand up or walk because the bones in his legs were broken, too. He couldn’t stay awake as Jose Antonio tried to feed him, so their father responded with a fatal kick to the head, he said.

When his father realized Ernesto was dead, the teen testified, he left him on the floor of their one-room Pacoima apartment and they all went to bed. When they woke up in the morning, Ernesto’s body still lay on the floor where he died.

Jose Antonio’s testimony came at the start of a preliminary hearing in Van Nuys Municipal Court in the case against his father, who is charged with abusing and murdering the children, and his mother, Petra Ricardo, and aunt, Maria Ricardo, who are charged with child endangerment and being accessories to murder. Testimony continues today.

Deputy Dist. Atty. David Mintz said he intends to elevate the charges against Esquivel to capital murder by proving either that the defendant committed multiple murders or that he tortured the children before killing them.

Esquivel and Maria Ricardo, 28, whom he lived with, were discovered with three children burying Ernesto in Angeles National Forest in March and promptly arrested.

It wasn’t until weeks later that Jose Antonio approached authorities and told them what might have otherwise remained a family secret: His little sister was also buried in the woods. He led Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies to her grave. They then arrested his mother.

As he recounted his siblings’ horrible deaths, his mother sighed deeply, tears welled in her eyes and she covered her face. His aunt covered her mouth. His father looked away.

Under cross-examination by defense lawyers, Jose Antonio said he was afraid of his father and that his mother and aunt were as well. He said the women obeyed Esquivel and rarely spoke up to him.

In fact, the boy said, his mother wanted to stay in her family’s rural home in Guerrero, Mexico, but “had no choice” but to go with his father when he took the family first to Tijuana, then to the San Fernando Valley.

Esquivel, 35, left two of his children with Petra Ricardo and took the other five “to work.” He never let them see their mother alone again, Jose Antonio said. His mother and her sister never spoke.

The siblings lived with their father, aunt and six half-siblings--or cousins, as the teen called them--in a one-room apartment. Jose Antonio said he went to school all day, then walked to a corner where he sold corn with his brother until 10 p.m. All but the youngest children in the household sold corn from street carts.

He said his father screamed at the children and beat them with his hands or belt or shoe nearly every day. He would scold them if they didn’t obey, if they didn’t sell enough corn, if they wet their pants or if they cried after being beaten, Jose Antonio said. He beat Guadalupe and Ernesto, the two dead children, more than any of the others, the boy testified.

His father beat Guadalupe because the toddler wasn’t potty trained, Jose Antonio said, Ernesto “because he said he may have been the son of some other person because he looked more American and didn’t speak right.”

Ernesto complained often and said he wanted to go back with his mother, the boy testified.

“[Esquivel] told him to stop saying foolish things, and he would hit him,” Jose Antonio said, speaking through a Spanish interpreter.

After Esquivel administered the final blow to Guadalupe, lifting her up over his head with both hands and slamming her against the wall, she lay on the ground nearly unconscious, Jose Antonio said. His aunt wanted to take her to the hospital, but his father refused.

“He said they couldn’t take her to the hospital or they’d see the bruises and call the police,” Jose Antonio said. Instead, he testified, his father said they would take the girl to her mother and Jose Antonio would take the blame and say he had beaten her, that he always beat her.

“He said I had to tell her that or my mother was going to be horrified and she’d call the police,” Jose Antonio said. “And that the same thing would happen to me.”