Retrial opens for stepmother in death of 5-year-old in ’01
In 2002, when Martha Flores was convicted of killing her stepdaughter, the strongest witness for the prosecution was her 6-year-old daughter even though she never testified.
Flores’ daughter, Sylvia, had told several people that on the morning 5-year-old Zoraida Flores died, Martha Flores hit Zoraida, knocking her down. That helped convince a jury that Flores inflicted Zoraida’s fatal head injuries.
Now, after living with Flores’ mother, Sylvia, at age 11, is a stronger ally for her mother, whose retrial opened Tuesday in District Judge Joseph Bonaventure’s courtroom.
In a testimony videotaped earlier this month, Sylvia said that Zoraida fell in the bathroom and hit her head. Flores was in the kitchen at the time and never hit the girl, Sylvia testified.
She also said she doesn’t remember telling anybody any other story.
Considering the circumstances, what Sylvia is saying now is not that surprising, a prosecutor suggested.
“When she was 5, she understood what she was saying was bad for her mother. You can understand how difficult it would be for an 11-year-old,” prosecutor Bill Kephart said.
He also said Sylvia has been told by Flores’ family that it is her fault her mother is in jail, Kephart said.
In the first trial, Bonaventure barred Sylvia from testifying. Under a child hearsay exception, prosecutors were allowed to use the testimony of others regarding what Sylvia had told them about her stepsister’s death.
But in 2005 the Nevada Supreme Court reversed the original conviction against Flores because a 2004 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Crawford v. Washington, changed the standards for admission of hearsay statements.
Flores’ case is the first one from Clark County to be reversed and sent back to District Court based on the Crawford decision, District Attorney David Roger said.
Prosecutors told jurors Tuesday that they will show them medical evidence that proves the Zoraida’s fatal head injuries happened within an hour of her death. Flores, who was jealous of the attention Zoraida received from her father, was the sole caretaker at the time, prosecutors said.
Defense attorney Al Lasso said he will provide testimony from a neurologist showing the wound to Zoraida’s head took hours to kill her.
Lasso said his client “cared for that child and shared with that child and she loved her.”
“I’m not going to tell you the father killed Zoraida,” Lasso said. “I’m not going to say to you that the father inflicted those blows.”
In the first trial, the defense was that Flores’ husband, Roberto Flores, was responsible for his daughter’s death.
At Martha Flores’ sentencing, Bonaventure called that defense distasteful as he described her as the worst female killer he had come across in his decades on the bench.
On Jan. 28, 2001, Roberto Flores had left the house no later than 5:15 a.m. for his shift as a food worker at the Luxor. Martha Flores called 911 at 5:53 a.m., and Zoraida was pronounced dead at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center about 6 a.m.
After her husband had left for work, Lasso said, Martha Flores found Zoraida unconscious in a top bunk bed in the bedroom where the whole family had slept the prior night.
Zoraida’s clothes were soaked in urine, Lasso said.
Lasso said Martha Flores washed Zoraida, combed her hair and tried to revive her with CPR.
In the middle of Kephart’s opening statement when he discussed the autopsy procedures and medical evidence of Zoraida’s brain injuries, a juror had to take a break because he said he felt like he was going to vomit.
The juror later asked Bonaventure whether he could be excused from the case, and Bonaventure said he would consider the request.
The juror said his visceral reaction would not affect his judgment, but he figured he couldn’t “be leaving the courtroom every 20 minutes” because of nausea.
He said he initially thought he could handle hearing the case, but he changed his mind, “once they started talking about hacking this little girl up.”
