Boy Beaten to Death, Officials Say

A 5-year-old Pacoima boy discovered in a shallow grave at the edge of Angeles National Forest was beaten to death by his father, a part-time gardener with a tangled home life, authorities said Tuesday.

Ernesto Barrera died as a result of blunt force trauma to his head, allegedly at the hands of his father, 34-year-old Marco Barragon. Barragon apparently fathered at least 10 children with the child’s mother and her sister.

Sheriff’s deputies have arrested Barragon and the boy’s aunt, Juana Barrera, 28, on suspicion of murder and being accessories to murder. They were to be arraigned today.

Barragon, a recent Mexican immigrant, has been arrested before for spousal abuse according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Ray Peavy, who is in charge of the investigation.

Nine of the children are in protective custody, said Schuyler Sprowles, spokesman for the Department of Children and Family Services. He said department officials had so far found no records of prior child abuse investigations involving Barragon.

“There’s a lot left to sort out,” Sprowles said. “We are trying to determine who the kids are and where they’re from.”

Apparently the children in the extended family often visited back and forth between the sisters’ two homes and Ernesto spent at least part of the weekend with his aunt and father in Pacoima. On Sunday morning, according to Pietra Barrera, the mother of the dead boy, Barragon visited her home in Pacoima to tell her of Ernesto’s death.

“My husband told me, he said, ‘You have to be strong,’ ” said 37-year-old Pietra Barrera, who authorities said is not a suspect in her son’s death. “Ernesto had an accident. He is dead.”

Barrera then told her he would make funeral arrangements and get back to her.

Instead, authorities believe, Barragon took some of his children and his other common-law wife, Juana, on a trip to find a burial spot for Ernesto.

Peavy said Barragon drove along Lopez Canyon Road for several minutes, telling his family that he was looking for a proper burial site for Ernesto.

But, Peavy said, investigators believe that Barragon was actually looking for a way to hide the body.

“I know why the man wanted to bury” the boy this way, Peavy said. “He killed the child.”

Eventually, the family pulled their brown Honda Accord to the side of the road and picked a site for the grave in a clearing surrounded by tall brush about 50 yards off the road, which runs about 2 miles north of Foothill Freeway, officials said.

Ernesto’s two 14-year-old twin brothers dug his grave, authorities believe. The two boys’ hands were covered with dirt when they were found with the rest of the group by deputies on routine patrol in the area Sunday night.

Barragon led deputies back to the grave site, where they brushed aside a thin layer of dirt to reveal the boy’s body, sheriff’s officials said.

At first, sheriff’s deputies thought the family was burying Ernesto because they couldn’t afford a funeral. But after talking with the family, they arrested Barragon and Juana Barrera.

“These conversations confirmed our suspicions that [Barragon] physically abused the child,” Peavy said. “We don’t believe [the death] was accidental.”

Meanwhile, Pietra Barrera told The Times that she learned of her son’s makeshift burial and alleged murder while watching television.

One of her children saw a news program about the death and recognized the blanket that covered the body as belonging to Ernesto. Pietra Barrera said she went to a neighbor’s home, who called the sheriff’s office and confirmed that her son had died.

Pietra Barrera said she didn’t believe that her husband had committed the crime.

As detectives and journalists descended on her simple stucco home in a working-class Arleta neighborhood, the mother spoke of her sadness and sense of loss.

“I came here for a better life, but it ended up worse,” Petra Barrera said in Spanish as she took shelter in a neighbor’s house across the street, her 16-day-old infant, Francis, wrapped in her arms.

Neighbors of the home that Barragon shared with Juana Barrera said the couple were hard working and kept to themselves. Barragon and Juana Barrera pushed a cart filled with corn around the streets of immigrant neighborhoods in Pacoima and San Fernando.

The couple lived in a converted two-car garage that Tuesday was filled with dirty dishes and scattered toys. On the floor were several twin mattresses tied together. In one corner was a basket filled with baseballs, softballs and basketballs.

Esteban Vasquez, who lives in the house abutting the converted garage, said he was surprised to hear of the arrests.

“They were people that were dedicated to working,” said Vasquez, 23. “We used to ask him, ‘You have all those children?’ He would say, they’re not all mine. We never asked them whose they were though.”

Times staff writers Solomon Moore and T. Christian Miller contributed to this story.