Melanie Beltran

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paramedics found the nearly lifeless, battered body of five year old Melanie Beltran on her family's living room floor. Melanie weighed onlyt 28 pounds. In the days that followed, officials interviewed her siblings. "There are secrets in the house," one child said. "We don't tell." The children said Melanie was singled out and routinely tied up, struck and burned with cigarettes, and was forced to eat hot peppers and drink out of a toilet. Petrov became angry because she noticed that someone had thrown up on a towel and immediately blamed Melanie. Melanie denied it and as punishment for lying was forced to eat hot sauce and Jalapeno peppers put into her mouth and her head was slammed into the wall.

 

Mila Petrov delivered her ninth child the day Melanie was removed from life support. The mother pleaded guilty to fatally beating her daughter and was sentenced to 39 years in prison. The father, Carlos Beltran, is serving 20 years for aggravated battery of a child. A DCFS investigative report documents frequent involvement with the Petrov family dating to 1985. Although the agency found credible allegations of such issues as educational and medical neglect, the family often moved before workers could track members down. Mila Petrov had lost another child years earlier. In 1995, a baby named Anita died of unknown causes. Family members said the baby died of sudden infant death syndrome, but her mother alleged that Anita was thrown during an argument. Neither parent was charged with wrong doing in Anita’s death.