Updated 7:11 AM on Sunday, March 19, 2006
Raped toddler's mom says she's a victim, too
By HOLLY HUFFMAN
Eagle Staff Writer
When Deanna Alvarado arrived home the morning of March 6 after a night of celebrating, she checked on her sleeping 13-month-old daughter and then left for work.
The 23-year-old mother of four normally worked nights at The Tropicana Club in Bryan, but she was starting a new day job and needed to attend orientation. So, she said, she did something she usually wouldn't do: She left her three daughters in the care of Jerry Rangel - a convicted sex offender.
Nine hours later, she received a call explaining that her youngest daughter had been brutally raped and was fighting for her life at a local hospital.
Child Protective Services has since placed Alvarado's three daughters in foster care. Rangel has been charged with aggravated sexual assault and aggravated assault, and Bryan police detectives are investigating whether charges should be filed against Alvarado.
Nearly two weeks after the attack, the angry mother says she feels as though she is getting a bad rap. And she wants her children back, she said.
"It's my fault that I left my babies there. I shouldn't have did that," Alvarado said during an interview, expressing anger that CPS had taken her children. "But I am not the bad one here."
March 6, when the child was sexually assaulted, was Rangel's 23rd birthday. Alvarado's mother told police she arrived home that afternoon and found the child lying on a bed, unresponsive and naked. Rangel was asleep on the floor nearby, his belt unbuckled, according to court documents.
Doctors said the child suffered multiple skull fractures, a broken left leg, a torn vagina and bruising on her head, legs and hands. She was hospitalized for a week before being released to a foster family near Scott & White Hospital in Temple.
Alvarado's other daughters - ages 3 and 4 - were placed with a Grimes County foster family immediately following the incident. Her fourth child - a boy - does not live with Alvarado.
Bryan police quickly focused their attention on Rangel, who was convicted nearly a decade ago of aggravated sexual assault of an 11-year-old and sentenced to eight years in a Texas Youth Commission facility. After being released from parole supervision in 2004, he was required to register annually as a sex offender until 2014.
A Texas Youth Commission spokesman declined to provide specifics about the original case, saying he was prevented from doing so by juvenile confidentiality regulations.
Bryan police and CPS caseworkers continued last week to investigate Rangel's most recent sexual assault charge. He remained Saturday at Brazos County Jail, held on $1.5 million bond.
Alvarado, meanwhile, says she is fighting to save her reputation.
"I don't want nobody lying on me," she said one day after the sexual assault. "I am a single parent trying to make it on my own with my kids."
Alvarado and Rangel
Police and family members said Rangel and Alvarado had been dating for several months and occasionally living together. Family members also told police they were aware Rangel was a convicted sex offender.
But Alvarado said last week that Rangel was merely a friend who, like many of her other friends, sometimes stayed at her home. She accused her relatives of lying about their relationship.
"I just barely met him," she said, responding to her mother's statements to police that the two were dating. "My mom don't even live here. My mom don't even know what's really going on."
Alvarado said she has known Rangel for about eight or nine months, but she didn't know he was a convicted sex offender until he returned from a trip to the Dallas area the week before the assault on her daughter.
Rangel had gone to Arlington to complete his annual registration. It was during that trip that he asked Tarrant County officials for emergency permission to move back to Brazos County.
Generally, a sex offender seeking to transfer his residence would have to wait seven days before obtaining approval, but Tarrant County officials waived the restriction and allowed him to move immediately.
Upon his return, Rangel told Alvarado he was required to register as a sex offender because he had "messed with an 11-year-old girl" when he, too, was 11, Alvarado said. Rangel went on to tell her that he had been released from TYC when he was 19, she said.
Alvarado said she never before had left her children with Rangel. Her sister usually cared for the children while she was at work, but the sister also had to work that day, she said.
Alvarado said she took her older daughters to the hospital following the incident, and exams show that neither was sexually assaulted.
"This happened when he was young," Alvarado said about Rangel's prior conviction, explaining why she wasn't overly worried about leaving her children with him. "Next time I will know. Next time, I will know to check them out on the Internet."
The investigation
A day after the assault on her daughter, Alvarado took aim at the Bryan Police Department, saying she felt the agency had done a "sloppy job." She said she found a bloody diaper under her bed and minor bloodstains on the wall - evidence, she said, that police didn't do a thorough investigation of her bedroom, where the toddler and Rangel were found.
"If you are a crime scene person, you are gonna turn that bedroom upside down. They did not dust for fingerprints. How do they know that it was not a break-in?" Alvarado asked.
Alvarado said she and Rangel had been celebrating his birthday in the hours before the incident. It was shortly after midnight when she encouraged Rangel to go with her to The Tropicana Club, where their friends were planning a surprise birthday party. At the time, Alvarado worked nights at the club as a waitress and bartender, but she said she has since quit.
After they left the club, the two went to a friend's house before returning home between 6 and 7 a.m. Rangel told police he snorted cocaine and drank alcohol throughout the night, but Alvarado said she did neither because she had orientation for her new job at St. Joseph Regional Health Center the following morning.
While celebrating, Alvarado said, she left her three daughters with her sister and her sister's boyfriend. When she arrived home, she said she found her youngest child in her mother's bedroom, asleep in bed next to her sister's boyfriend.
Alvarado, who had originally said her mother didn't live at the home, said days later that the woman did, in fact, live there but often stayed other places.
"I went to go get the baby out
," she continued. "I changed her Pamper, gave her a bottle and put her back in my mom's room with my "
Bryan police investigators have said the boyfriend of Alvarado's sister is not a suspect.
Police spokeswoman Jillian Garza said she couldn't respond directly to Alvarado's allegations because of the ongoing investigation. But she did say that "significant resources" have been committed to the investigation.
"This investigation is a very serious criminal matter given the nature of the offense and the age of the victim," Garza said via e-mail. "The District Attorney's Office has filed charges of aggravated sexual assault ... and aggravated assault; both of these charges are serious felony offenses. The investigation is still continuing, and as a result we are unable to comment ... other than to say that additional charges are pending."
CPS
Alvarado said Wednesday she had cut off all contact with Rangel and was focused on trying to win back her children. The process, she was told, could take up to six months.
CPS seized the children under an emergency removal policy that allows the agency to take custody of children who are thought to be in immediate danger or are victims of sexual abuse, according to the family code. Within 24 hours, CPS must hold an initial hearing during which a judge decides whether to uphold the removal, CPS spokesman Chris Van Deusen said last week.
A second hearing is set for 1 p.m. Wednesday. That hearing - during which parents are allowed to plead their case - must be held within 14 days, Van Deusen said. It is then that a judge will decide whether the children should remain in protective custody or be returned to a parent, the spokesman said.
If they remain in CPS custody, caseworkers will continue working to determine whether the children should eventually be returned to the parents or if parental rights should be terminated. The agency also can allow a relative to adopt the children, he said.
The CPS investigation into the Alvarado family is ongoing, Van Deusen said, explaining that an average investigation lasts three to four weeks.
He said it didn't seem likely that the children would be returned to Alvarado on Wednesday.
"That would seem a long shot," Van Deusen said.
Alvarado said Thursday that she was willing to do whatever it takes to regain custody of her children. Though she had yet to hire an attorney for her hearing, she said she planned to do so.
Her new job and search for a new apartment had been part of her effort to "make a better life" for herself and her children, she said. But now, she said, she hasn't been able to see her children for almost two weeks. She wasn't even able to visit her daughter in the hospital, she said in frustration.
"I am their mom. I love those kids to death," said Alvarado, who now works during the day at a cafe inside St. Joseph Regional Health Center.
"I am just trying to get my kids back. I have to go through a lot, but whatever it takes ... that's what I am gonna do. My kids come first."
• Holly Huffman's e-mail address is holly.huffman@theeagle.com.
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