BATTLE GROUND, Wash. (KOIN) �?A 40-year-old man is charged with murder after the 3-year-old son of his girlfriend died on Monday night.
Ricardo Gutierrez was booked into the Clark County Jail late Monday after being arrested at the scene of the crime, the house where he lived with his girlfriend, her parents, and her 3 children.
He appeared in court on Tuesday morning where he requested a court appointed attorney. Judge Daniel L. Stahnke set his bail at $1.5 million.
The 3-year-old boy, Jose Castillo-Cisneros, who was called ‘Pepe’ by his family, was taken to the hospital in critical condition after Battle Ground police responded to a disturbance call the 1600 block of SW 6th st. at 7:47 p.m. Monday night.
Jose’s 9-year-old sister, according to court documents, called police when she realized her brother was being beaten. She reported that her mom had tried to stop the beating but wasn’t able to. On the phone, 911 dispatchers overheard the mother saying what sounded like “he is killing me.” The mother was injured in the incident as well.
The girl told dispatchers that her brother was in a big puddle of blood and was not breathing. She told them she and her brother had been watching a movie when he started crying and went into Gutierrez’s room, and that Gutierrez was mad that the boy was crying.
Officers had to force entry into the house to reach Gutierrez and the boy.
The Clark County Sheriff’s Major Crimes Unit spent more than 12 hours at the scene conducting an investigation.
According to court documents, the boy’s body had bruises and there was evidence of a knife wound on his head. A broken knife was found in Gutierrez’s bedroom and the blade of the knife was found in a bathroom sink.
Detectives also found a hole in the wall of the bathroom the size of a small child’s head.
KOIN 6 checked into Gutierrez’s background and found he has a history of violent offenses. In 2007, he was convicted of assault in the second degree for nearly strangling to death an ex-girlfriend at the Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford. Medford Police Sergeant Brent Mak remembers responding to the call.
“I would call it horrific,” he said. “I mean, in front of everybody in the parking lot, multiple witnesses see him choking her almost to the point of death.”
That woman was in intensive care for weeks.‘He was a little angel’
Pepe’s aunt Brenda Cisneros told KOIN 6 News her sister is devastated by the boy’s death. “Oh my God, she’s so sad.”
Pepe had just turned 3 about 10 days ago and recently started attending school.
“He was a good boy,” she said. “He was autistic so he was very special to us, my sister and my family.”
Cisneros described Pepe as “full of joy, always playing around, a trouble maker,” she said, smiling. “Going to miss him.”
She said Pepe’s mother and Gutierrez had been dating for about a year, and got back together after they split. They have a 1-month-old son together.
She said she did not know Gutierrez had a violent history.
The boy’s mother was “washing dishes downstairs and the kids just took showers, watching a movie.” Gutierrez was upstairs and she heard her son crying, Cisneros said.
When the mother went upstairs, “She says he was hitting him and threw him to the wall. And it’s horrible.”
Her sister fought back, Pepe’s aunt said. “She really did. She feels guilty, but he’s really a tall guy. She really couldn’t do much.”
“We want to make justice for baby because it’s not fair,” the aunt told KOIN 6 News. “He was a little angel, 3 years old.”What the neighbors saw and heard
Neighbor Lindsey Stroah said she was in her backyard with her daughter when “we heard just a terrifying scream.”
She said they ran out front and “within seconds Battle Ground PD was there banging down the door, knocked it down and from there it was just 7,8, 9 sheriffs, Battle Ground police, investigators.”
Stroah said the community is close knit and that the entire incident is “very sad, very disturbing. To know that somebody is like that in your neighborhood, and I guess the question is why? Why would you even think of doing something like this?”
Another neighbor, Jessica Hill, said she was “in absolute disbelief” that this could happen in her “tiny, quiet neighborhood.”
She said she met Gutierrez, who talked about his little boy and “when his little baby was due.” Initially, she thought he was “a wonderful man.”
“Oh my gosh,” she told KOIN 6 News, “it’s terrifying to know that I’ve lived by that for a few months now.”