More than eight years have passed since a 2-year-old girl was killed, wrapped in plastic garbage bags and left in the attic of her family’s Gwinnett County home, but her mother broke down Friday in court, crying as if the murder just happened.
Amy Ruiz told the court she was not a murderer but a victim, according to Channel 2 Action News.
She was 20 years old when her husband allegedly killed their daughter, Prisi, with a blow to the head and then covered up the crime. The couple fled to Mexico with a son from Ruiz’s previous marriage.
Ruiz cried nearly nonstop in court Friday, insisting Christian Vasquez wouldn’t let her call 911 on Feb. 3, 2007, when she returned home to find her daughter in distress. She said her ex-husband, abused her and held her captive in Mexico.
In June 2008, a tip from a relative of the toddler’s mother led police to a rental home on Stillwater Drive, where Vasquez had lived with his family. Prisi’s small body was found wrapped in plastic in the attic of the home, unknown even to the person renting the home at the time, police said.
The following month, Prisi Vasquez was buried in an infant grave at White Chapel Memorial Gardens in Duluth, alongside her great uncle.
Vasquez was indicted by a Gwinnett County grand jury on Aug. 27, 2008, charging him with murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and cruelty to children. A federal arrest warrant charging Vasquez with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution was then obtained and the Gwinnett County District Attorney also obtained a provisional arrest warrant to allow Mexican law enforcement to arrest Vasquez, Special Agent Stephen Emerson said.
Ruiz was arrested in 2009, while crossing the Mexican border into Texas and spent a month in the Gwinnett County jail before posting bond on a single count of cruelty to children. Her booking sheet from the arrest suggests she’d been living in the north Georgia city of Clayton since.
Vasquez remained on the lam until July 2012, when Mexican law enforcement arrested him in the town of Puebla.
Vasquez was extradited to Georgia and booked into jail on murder charges in 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation Atlanta Field Office previously told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Vasquez was arrested by Mexican law enforcement authorities in the town of Puebla, located in south central Mexico, Emerson said.
The Gwinnett County District Attorney's Office upgraded the charges against Ruiz in 2015, based on her own conflicting statements, which implicated her more than originally thought. Her trial was delayed in February, when a potential juror disobeyed court orders and looked up case information on the internet.
The jurors Friday showed little emotion as Ruiz sobbed, according to Channel 2. Closing arguments are scheduled to take place Monday.
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