PORTERVILLE, Calif. (TCD) — A 29-year-old man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the 2015 fatal beating of his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son.
The Tulare County District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday, June 7, that a judge sentenced Izzac Murillo to 54 years to life for first-degree murder and assault on a child causing death.
According to a news release from the Porterville Police Department, on July 24, 2015, at approximately 4:38 a.m., officers responded to a report of an infant not breathing at a home on the 700 block of West Parkway. Officers found an unresponsive 2-year-old child, and he was transported to Sierra View Medical Center before being airlifted to Valley Children’s Hospital in Fresno, where he later died.
At the hospital, medical staff reportedly noticed the “victim’s abdomen and genital area appeared distended,” and he likely sustained internal injuries. The victim also had “bruises on his head, face, chin, and abrasions to his lips and gums consistent with being struck in the face.”
According to the District Attorney’s Office, operating doctors were “unable to stop severe internal bleeding coming from lacerations and the complete severing of the victim’s bowel.”
The child also reportedly sustained bruising to his genitals, and doctors said his injuries were “similar to what would be seen in a car collision victim whose abdomen had impacted the steering wheel violently.”
The child’s mother and Murillo’s girlfriend, Adriana Vasquez, 29, reportedly spoke with officials and had apparent bruising on her face and eye. The District Attorney’s Office said she told authorities Murillo was a “violent man prone to physical abuse, including restraining her with rope in a bedroom.” However, Vasquez was initially adamant that Murillo was not responsible for her child’s injuries.
According to the District Attorney’s Office, officials recovered rope and brass knuckles in Murillo’s bedroom and determined he beat the child despite Vasquez’s statement.
Vasquez’s two other young children witnessed or were victims of Murillo’s “violent outbursts,” the District Attorney’s Office said.
Police arrested Murillo on Sept. 30, 2015. Officials also arrested Vasquez for “willfully putting her children in danger by using methamphetamine on a consistent basis while the children were in her care.”
According to the District Attorney’s Office, Vasquez pleaded no contest to child abuse likely to cause great bodily injury or death and two counts of child abuse in April 2016. In May 2018, she was sentenced to eight years.
In April of this year, Murillo pleaded no contest to first-degree murder, assault on a child causing death, domestic violence, false imprisonment by violence, and possession of metal knuckles.
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