A babysitter was arrested on murder charges in the death of a baby she was watching in her home while the baby’s mother was at work, according to Eatonton Police Chief Howell Cardwell.
Reyna Lopez, 42, of East Marion Street, Eatonton, was arrested on Nov. 13 and is being held without bond in Putnam County jail on charges of felony murder, malice murder, making false statements to conceal facts, and aggravated assault.
The five-month-old baby, Christopher Perez-Gutierrez, was buried the same day as the arrest, according to Cardwell. Williams Funeral Home in Eatonton handled the funeral and burial arrangements free of charge.
“It’s ironic that we buried him (Wednesday) and she confessed (Wednesday),” Cardwell said. “This is a very tragic case; we’ve got a 5-month-old who is gone.”
The investigation went on for five weeks because it involved undocumented immigrants from Guatemala who did not speak English and the need to fly federal authorities in from Puerto Rico to conduct lie detector tests.
On the evening of Thursday, Oct. 10, Cardwell received a phone call from the Scottish Rite Hospital – Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta saying a Hispanic infant had been flown in by medical helicopter.
The child had severe skull fractures, brain bleeding, and bruising on his head and legs. The hospital authorities had also called in the Georgia Division of Health and Children Services.
Cardwell drove to Atlanta and talked with the medical personnel, DFCS personnel, and the baby’s mother. Eatonton Police Department Investigator Hargrove Jones accompanied him to the hospital, as did Georgia Dept. of Corrections Officer Bobby Keim, who served as an interpreter.
Cardwell said the mother had told the hospital doctor and Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) representatives and himself different versions of what happened to her son. But because the physician’s assistant told him the infant’s chances of survival were not good, Cardwell decided to let her stay at the hospital with her child.
On Oct. 20, hospital personnel called Cardwell and told him the baby had succumbed to his injuries.
With help from Keim, Cardwell talked again to the mother, Mayra Perez, who told him she worked for a cleaning company and had taken Christopher to Lopez’s house on the morning of Thursday, Oct. 10, before she went to work.
Lopez was the child’s babysitter and, according to Cardwell, also had seven children living with her, ages one to 11.
“She (mother) said the baby was fine when she dropped him off, but about an hour later, the babysitter called her and said the baby was real sick and she needed to come get him,” Cardwell said.
Perez picked up her son and drove him to St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital in Greene County. There, the emergency department doctors called for a medical helicopter to fly the severely injured infant to the Atlanta hospital.
The babysitter told the investigators that the baby was sick when the mother first brought him to her house, and when she noticed it, she called the mother to come back.
Because of the different versions provided, Cardwell brought in FBI Special Agent Israel Simon, who speaks Spanish, to conduct a lie detector test on the two women. Cardwell said Simon talked to Perez for a while before conducting the test to ensure she understood what was happening.
“He said she passed with flying colors,” Cardwell said. “I’d never heard it phrased that way, but he was confident she had nothing to do with her son’s death and had no knowledge of what happened.”
Because the polygraph with the mother had taken so long, Simon had to leave and go back to Puerto Rico instead of being able to stay and conduct a polygraph on the babysitter. He returned at a later date to conduct the test. As he had done with the mother, Simon talked to the babysitter before the test as he had done with the mother.
“During the pre-interview, she said the baby had fallen off the sofa at her house. So, she picked him up and shook him and then hit him, trying to revive him,” Cardwell said.
Later that night, Lopez was arrested on the murder charges and taken to Putnam County Jail.
Her husband, Joel Perez-Sanchez, had told the officers in an earlier interview that nothing had happened at their house, so he was arrested Nov. 14 on charges of making false statements to law enforcement officers and is also being held without bond in Putnam County jail.
The infant’s mother, Perez, also was arrested for making false statements, but she was released on bond.
“She said she gave different stories because she was scared of the babysitter, or maybe she was afraid of law enforcement,” Cardwell said Tuesday morning. “She is really having a tough time right now grieving the loss of her son.”
Cardwell expressed his gratitude to Investigator Jones, Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills, and GDOC officer Keim for helping him with the investigation.
“I didn’t do all of this by myself,” he said. “They helped me a lot. It was a difficult case because of the language barrier. You can’t get a real feel for people when you’re talking to them through an interpreter, no matter how good they (the interpreters) are.”
Cardwell said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been notified regarding Perez and Sanchez’s undocumented status.