Police say graphic autopsy pictures of a boy scalded in a bathtub in November poke holes in the defense his mother and her boyfriend plan to use against charges that they murdered the 2-year-old.
The pictures show that skin on the forehead and chin had fallen off of Elijah Archuleta’s face.
Elijah was pronounced dead at St. Anthony’s Hospital on Nov. 7. A judge ruled Monday his mother, 23-year-old Isela Reyes-Talamantes, and her boyfriend, 24-year-old John Vigil, will stand trial on first-degree-murder charges in the boy’s death later this year.
Monday, Denver police Detective Michael Martinez testified about an interview conducted with the boy’s 4-year- old sister the day after his death.
“John John got fire on Elijah in the bathtub,” she said.
Denver police Detective Larry Moore said the mother maintained that she did not know the boy was seriously injured. But the detective detailed the burns the boy suffered, making it clear that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for a mother not to notice the severity of the injuries.
According to Moore’s testimony, Reyes-Talamantes told him the first time she learned of the burns was when Vigil and the kids picked her up from work at 1:20 p.m. after the couple had argued in the morning. She noticed the boy’s hands and face were burned.
However, Moore testified Reyes-Talamantes always maintained she didn’t know how badly the 2-year-old was burned.
But Moore said chunks of skin had fallen off the boy’s forehead, chin and left shoulder, leaving blood vessels and veins exposed. Moore told the court the boy was burned on the left forehead, eye, cheek and chin. Elijah was also badly burned on his back and leg.
Moore testified that the couple did not take the boy to the hospital until after 10 p.m. that day after dropping the boy’s sister off with a relative.
A probable cause statement says the couple also went shopping, to a bank, to a gas station, to a court hearing Vigil needed to attend and to Walgreens to buy something to put on the toddler’s face. Then, Reyes -Talamantes told investigators, the couple continued on to Chipotle and Wal-Mart before finally returning home at 7:15 p.m. — all before they took the boy for treatment.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Kerri Lombardi said after the hearing: “Either one of these defendants could have prevented the death of this child.”
