Police bodycam footage showed a four-year-old boy with black eyes and bones protruding from his small body weeks before he starved to death.
Benjamin Cevera looked hungry and scared in a July 2021 clip shown to jurors Tuesday at his father Brandon Cevera’s child abuse trial in San Antonio, Texas.
The little boy – known as Benji – died less than a month later weighing just 28 pounds. It is said that he was forced by his family to drink hand sanitizer and eat breadcrumbs off the floor of his family’s bathroom without using his hands.
In the images, shared by KSATBenji’s father and stepmother Miranda Casarez, 25, can be seen claiming to police that the youngster injured himself and caused the visible injuries.
Benjamin Cevera looked hungry and scared in a July 2021 clip shown to the judges
His father Brandon Cevera is seen in police bodycam footage standing next to his child in 2021
It stabs his eyes and his ear. Brandon Cevera is filmed telling police. Casarez, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison earlier this year for abusing Benji, also made a joke.
“He has behavioral problems,” she began. ‘He gets up at night and goes to the kitchen and eats.;
Gauze is also taped to one of his ears. Poignantly, the little boy is filmed repeatedly asking his father for food, only to be denied.
Benji was the only member of his family without a bed. He had to sleep on a mattress with a urine-soaked blanket.
The boy was locked in his room, while the home’s refrigerator and kitchen cupboards were also padlocked to prevent him from being fed. San Antonio Express News reported.
Footage shown to the court showed Benjamin being interviewed alone by two San Antonio police officers.
Benji was the only member of his family without a bed. He had to sleep on a mattress with a urine-soaked blanket
Brandon Cevera denies harming a child and faces life in prison if convicted
Ex-wife Miranda Casarez has already been sentenced to 25 years behind bars
When he showed his black eyes in the mirror and asked what happened to him, Benji says, “I poked them.”
Heartbreakingly, the trusting youngster was also filmed smiling at the two police officers sent to check on him.
Officer Omar Perez, one of two officers who made the welfare check, told the court that Benji “had visible injuries.”
Perez added: “He had bruises on his eyes and torso and he was thin… he could see his bones.”
Paramedics arrived on scene and checked Benji’s vital signs and said they were normal.
Perez told the court he was told to call child protective services and fill out a report.
He said he was told this would lead to an investigation into what happened to Benji at a later date.
But 25 days later, Benji was dead, two months shy of his fifth birthday. Police and social services are facing questions about why Benji was left to die.
Brandon Cevera denies harming a child and faces life in prison if convicted.
In early 2022, San Antonio police collected cellphone footage that showed Benji telling his father “I want to eat” and begging for food and water.
The trial will resume on Monday.
