Child murdered
McALLEN, Texas (AP) — A man accused of fatally beating his two-year-old stepdaughter in Texas when she wouldn't stop crying as he watched a World Cup match was expected to be charged Monday with murder, police said.
Hector Castro, 27, of McAllen was arrested Saturday and scheduled to be arraigned Monday in municipal court. He told police that the toddler wouldn't stop crying while he was watching the U.S.-Ghana game on Saturday, McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez told The McAllen Monitor.
The girl was severely beaten, and police said a screw or bolt was forced down her throat in an apparent attempt to make it look like she accidentally chocked.
"There are no words for this," Rodriguez said. "It makes you want to think about doing lots of things to this guy, but he will face the criminal justice system just like everybody else."
Castro, who was in the U.S. illegally, implicated himself in the girl's death in a confession he gave to investigators, Rodriguez said. The toddler suffered several cracked ribs.
Four other children who lived at Castro's apartment in McAllen were placed into the custody of Child Protective Services, Rodriguez said. There was no word on where the child's mother was at the time of the child's death.
McAllen is just north of the U.S.-Mexico border at the southern tip of Texas.
