Matthew Baez

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a story that I could find very much information on. What I could find is below:

 

Remembering Matthew

Matthew Baez was only 21 months old when his life ended. He wasn't even two. At 21 months, Matthew should have been busy discovering the world around him. He was at an age of first words, uncertain little steps, favorite toys, curiosity and the beginnings of a personality that should have had years to grow. He was still a baby in so many ways.

Matthew depended entirely upon the adults around him for food, shelter, comfort and protection. He was too young to understand danger and far too young to protect himself from it. Very little of Matthew's life appears to have survived in the public record that can still be found today. There are children whose cases generated hundreds of newspaper articles and years of court proceedings. And then there are children like Matthew. Children whose names remain, while much of their story has become extraordinarily difficult to recover decades later. That does not make Matthew's life any less important. His name was Matthew Baez. He was a little boy. He lived. And he deserves to be remembered.

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Matthew's Story

Matthew Baez died in New York in 1988 at approximately 21 months old. At this time, the surviving information available to Abuse Angels about the circumstances surrounding Matthew's death is extremely limited.

Rather than fill those missing pieces with assumptions, his story will remain exactly what can responsibly be preserved.

Matthew was approximately 21 months old. His life ended before his second birthday. And his name became one of the names remembered by Abuse Angels. The absence of surviving details should never become a reason for Matthew to disappear. If anything, it makes preserving his name even more important. Decades have passed since Matthew died.

Records disappear. Newspapers close. Archives remain undigitized. Stories that once appeared in local reporting can become nearly impossible to locate. But behind whatever happened in New York in 1988 was a real little boy.

Matthew was here.

 

Justice for Matthew

At this time, Abuse Angels has been unable to verify enough surviving public information to accurately document who was responsible for Matthew's death or whether anyone was criminally prosecuted. For that reason, no suspect, conviction or sentence will be presented here as fact without documentation. Matthew deserves truth. Where the historical record available to us is incomplete, we will say that plainly rather than give him a story that may belong to someone else. Should additional verified records concerning Matthew's death become available, his memorial can be updated so that his full story and any justice that followed can be preserved.

 

Forever Remembered

Matthew Baez should be approaching 40 years old today. Instead, everything we can currently preserve about his life fits into only a handful of facts. His name. His approximate age. New York. That isn't enough. There should be photographs. There should be memories. There should be stories about what made him laugh, what toys he reached for, whose arms made him feel safe and what his little personality was beginning to become. Most importantly, there should have been years. Matthew should have celebrated his second birthday. Then his third. He should have gone to school. He should have grown from a toddler into a child, a teenager and eventually an adult. He never received that opportunity. And even though time has made the details surrounding Matthew's death difficult to recover, it does not get to erase Matthew himself. His name was Matthew Baez. He was approximately 21 months old. His life mattered.

And more than three decades later, Abuse Angels still remembers his name.