Full coverage: The death of 10-year-old Anthony Avalos
The mother of 10-year-old Anthony Avalos and her boyfriend were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2018 murder and torture of the child in their Lancaster home.
Anthony’s mother, Heather Barron, and her boyfriend, Kareem Leiva, opted to have their case heard by a judge rather than a jury. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta handed down the verdict in March after spending a little over two weeks reviewing evidence.
Anthony died on June 21, 2018, after arriving at the emergency room with fatal bleeding in his skull. His 77-pound body showed signs of prolonged abuse.
Anthony had been under the supervision of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services sporadically from 2013 to 2017. During that period, at least 13 calls were made by teachers, police, counselors and relatives to the child abuse hotline about Anthony’s welfare.
But child protective workers and others tasked with protecting Anthony missed numerous warnings and opportunities to intervene before his death, according to dozens of interviews and a review of court records, documents from the department and records of outside agencies hired by the county to help Anthony and his family.
In October 2018, a grand jury indicted Barron and Leiva on charges that they murdered the boy and abused two other children in the household.
On March 31, 2022, a state licensing board imposed a four-year probation on Barbara Dixon, a contracted L.A. County counselor, for failing to report the suspected abuse.
A lawsuit filed by Anthony’s family in 2019 against the county, DCFS and one of its contractors sought $50 million in damages and alleged that social workers willfully disregarded concerns about abuse and failed to protect the boy.
Last year, the family and the county announced they had reached a tentative $32-million settlement.
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Heather Barron and her boyfriend, Kareem Leiva, were sentenced to life in prison without parole for the torture and murder of her son, Anthony Avalos.
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“What will it take to stop this endless train of tragedy?” asks a reader. “More money for more social workers? Better training and supervision?”
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Kareem Leiva and Heather Barron were convicted of murder charges in the death of 10-year-old Anthony Avalos. The case exposed massive failures in L.A. County’s child care systems.
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“They’re nothing short of monsters for what they did,” said L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Jonathan Hatami. “Both of these defendants are evil individuals.”
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Taking the stand against their own mother, two children recounted how Heather Barron and Kareem Leiva turned their Antelope Valley residence into a house of horrors, forcing them to do grueling workouts, fight one another and guzzle hot sauce.
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Trial begins for Anthony Avalos’ mother and her boyfriend, accused of abusing him for years before his death exposed failings in L.A. County’s social services.
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L.A. County supervisors approve $32-million settlement in abuse death of 10-year-old Anthony Avalos in spite of repeated warnings to social workers.
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The family of Anthony Avalos, a 10-year-old Lancaster boy who prosecutors say died of child abuse, has reached a tentative settlement with the county.
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Barbara Dixon provided in-home counseling to both boys, whose deaths spotlighted egregious lapses in L.A. County’s child welfare system.
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Anthony, Noah, Gabriel and beyond: How to fix L.A. County DCFS
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Avalos’ mother and her boyfriend are accused of torturing the 10-year-old Lancaster boy for days before his death in 2018.
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The case of 10-year-old Anthony Avalos exposes serious failures by the Los Angeles County child protection system to intervene before his death.
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Heather Barron, then 18, gives birth to Anthony.
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Anthony Avalos’ relatives praised the district attorney’s office’s decision to pursue the death penalty, which was announced in court.
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A long-awaited state audit of Los Angeles County’s troubled Department of Children and Family Services has uncovered shortcomings that often place vulnerable children in harm’s way.
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A county review found that the Department of Children and Family Services took “considerable actions” in the case of 10-year-old Anthony Avalos, but nonetheless made a series of recommendations to minimize risks to other children in the future.
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The family of Anthony Avalos alleges that social workers willfully disregarded concerns about abuse and failed to protect the boy before his death.
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Prosecutors on Wednesday announced that a Lancaster woman and her boyfriend could face the death penalty in the slaying of her 10-year-old son, Anthony Avalos, who authorities allege was whipped, beaten and body-slammed before his death in June.
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The arraignment of a Lancaster mother and her boyfriend facing felony charges in connection with the death of 10-year-old Anthony Avalos was delayed Friday after a judge approved new attorneys for the two.
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Tragically, yet not necessarily surprisingly, young Anthony Avalos’ story is not unique.
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When his younger siblings were being beaten, 10-year-old Anthony Avalos would get in the way, taking the hits so the other children didn’t have to.
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Relatives of Anthony Avalos are demanding that prosecutors criminally investigate any social workers connected to the slain 10-year-old, saying they failed to remove the boy from his mother’s home despite years of documented abuse.
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Anthony Avalos suffered at least five days of sustained torture that culminated in the 10-year-old boy’s death last month, Los Angeles County prosecutors allege in new court papers.
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Three weeks ago, I wrote that the sentencing of Gabriel Fernandez’s mother and her boyfriend to, respectively, life in prison and death would likely not mark the final time our letter writers mention the name of the 8-year-old boy whose torture, beatings and 2013 death had elicited their expressions of grief and anger over five years.
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The mother of Anthony Avalos was arrested Friday and charged in the murder of the 10-year-old boy, who authorities believe was the victim of child abuse.
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Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives have arrested a woman’s boyfriend in the death of her 10-year-old son, who was found unresponsive at their Lancaster home a week ago.
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Even Anthony Avalos’ relatives can’t agree on whether the 10-year-old Lancaster boy who died last week was being regularly abused by his mother and her boyfriend.
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Anthony Avalos came out as gay in recent weeks, and authorities are now investigating whether homophobia played a role in the death of the 10-year-old Lancaster boy, a county official said.
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The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday ordered officials in charge of child protection to examine shortcomings in the system in the wake of a 10-year-old boy’s death last week.
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Long before 10-year-old Anthony Avalos died on Thursday with severe head injuries and cigarette burns covering his body, law enforcement officers and child protective caseworkers documented years of severe abuse allegations, according to sources familiar with the case history.
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Authorities are investigating the suspicious death of a 10-year-old boy at a Lancaster home where both Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and the Department of Children and Family Services had been called out to previously.
