Mother charged with beating 11 year old daughter to death

11-Year-Old Brooklyn Girl, Beaten to Death, Was All but Invisible Until She Died
By LESLIE KAUFMAN and KAREN ZRAICK
Alejandra Vasquez came to Brooklyn from Mexico about a month ago but was hidden — never enrolled in school, and unseen by child-welfare officials who visited.


Alejandra was unknown to the authorities until her body was discovered on Sunday morning, but her story in some ways echoes that of her older sister, Imelda, 14, who has been in foster care since January.

Imelda also came from Mexico after years away from her mother and did not regularly attend school here, records show; she told child-welfare officials that her mother frequently beat her with toys and a belt, and, in May, asked never to see her again.

The medical examiner ruled Alejandra’s death a homicide by blunt force trauma, and found evidence in an autopsy of ongoing beatings. “There were recent blunt-impact injuries to the head, torso and extremities” that were “in various stages of healing,” said a spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove.

On Monday night, Alejandra’s mother, 36-year-old Florencia Vasquez, was charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in her daughter’s death. Her longtime companion, identified by the police as Andres Pavon — with whom Ms. Vasquez has children aged 3 and 1 — has been charged with second-degree manslaughter.

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