There was a time when three Dallas children loved the man accused of imprisoning them in a hotel bathroom for months with little food.
They play-fought, went for walks and called Alfred Santiago "Dad," even though he was their mother's boyfriend.
That all changed when he began beating and starving the children, said a 12-year-old girl whom he’s also accused of sexually abusing.
"I thought he was a monster," the girl testified this afternoon.
An uncle visiting from Ohio found the children a year ago locked in a filthy, foul-smelling bathroom at a Budget Suites on the Stemmons Freeway, not far from Love Field. All three were emaciated.
The girl detailed numerous incidents of sexual abuse by Santiago that began when the family lived in Florida. She said he threatened to hurt her family if she told anyone.
When the family moved to Dallas County, she said, the abuse became more severe and frequent.
The girl also told jurors about her time locked in the bathroom and why she gave up food so her brothers could have a bit more.
"I knew they needed it more than me," she said.
The worst thing about the months-long ordeal, the girl said, wasn't starving or being raped or wearing the same clothes for a week or the smell.
"I had no one to love,” she said. “I had my brothers. But I had no mom. I had no dad,” she said. The pain was like "somebody was stabbing me through the heart. It was horrible."
Also testifying today was a forensic interviewer, who broke down in tears this morning when describing the children’s condition when she first spoke to them.
The children were “like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” said Jessie Gonzales, who has interviewed more than 2,000 abused children.
Gonzales said most abused children show no outward signs of what they’ve endured, but these three were different. She’s the third witness to testify that the girl and her brothers, 5 and 10 at the time, resembled victims of the Holocaust.
She said she usually tries to build a rapport with her subjects by asking about school, their friends and what they do for fun. But that was a struggle, she said, because these children spent months locked in a bathroom and did not attend school.
At one point during her testimony, Gonzales covered her face with her hands and began to sob, prompting the judge to call for a break.
Also this morning, Visiting Judge John Nelms dismissed a juror who called to say she had child-care problems and couldn't report to court today. She was told to show up anyway but didn’t and could not be reached by the judge.
The trial shouldn't be affected. There were two alternate jurors; one is now a juror.
Both the prosecution and the defendant agreed to the dismissal.
"I'm OK with it," Santiago said, standing before Nelms when the jury was not present.
Because of the jury issue, testimony began more than 90 minutes late today.
Gonzales, the forensic interviewer, talks to abused children so that they are interviewed only once and aren’t asked leading questions. The interviews are recorded so that prosecutors, police and Child Protective Services don’t have to question the children again.
One of the children testified Thursday that he and his siblings were fed less frequently than once a day, and that when they did get food, it was only in tiny amounts. He also described being beaten by his mother's boyfriend.
Photographs taken in the hotel room and exhibited at Santiago's trial show that there was plenty of food there: Its refrigerator and cabinets held cake, ice cream, hot dogs, crackers and bread.
The children's mother, 31-year-old Abneris Santiago, is to be tried immediately after her boyfriend. She, too, could be sent to prison for life if convicted.
