Bio Mom Of Child Whose Remains Were Found In Attic Asks Why

PHOENIX, AZ — While the Arizona Department of Child Safety hasn’t revealed any additional details about the juvenile human remains found in the attic drywall at a Phoenix home, Priscilla Marquez says she’s the dead child’s bio mom — and she wonders how something like this could happen.

Priscilla Marquez also claims to be the mother of the 11-year-old girl and the 9-year-old boy removed from Rafael and Maribel Loera’s home near Camelback and 59th Avenue on Jan. 20 and Jan. 28 respectively. A 4-year-old girl was also removed on Jan. 28.

Court documents showed that Rafael Loera, 56, told police the remains found in the attic at his residence were those of a girl they had adopted: Charisma Marquez, whom they renamed Ana Loera. Rafael Loera also told police Ana Loera became ill, but he didn’t try to take her to the hospital for a few days. When Rafael Loera finally did take Ana Loera to the hospital, she started convulsing and vomiting in the car, then died before they could get to the hospital, he said.

Rafael Loera then turned the car around and headed home with Ana Loera’s body, and he and Maribel Loera, 50, then wrapped Ana Loera's remains in a sheet and hid her in the attic for two years, Rafael Loera said. The Loeras’ motive in hiding the body and remaining silent about it was, court documents said, so that the other children wouldn’t be removed from their home.

Priscilla Marquez, who said her six kids were removed from her care in 2011 or 2012 as she battled addiction, can’t understand how the Loeras could let Ana Loera’s condition degrade so drastically without doing anything earlier. “Why couldn’t you just take her to the hospital? And if you didn’t want anything to happen to your other children, why were you putting hands on them in the first place? He says his wife was doing it and he couldn’t stop her. That’s no excuse,” Priscilla Marquez told azcentral.com.

She also doesn’t understand why the Loeras would adopt three of her children if they weren’t going to give them a loving home. “This was hell for my children,” Priscilla Marquez told azfamily.com. “Why did you adopt my children? To torture them? Because you didn’t give them a happy home.

“I don’t understand how these people passed a background check to be able to take three innocent children,” Priscilla Marquez said.

The kids were starved and beaten with extension cords in a house littered with feces, court documents said. A police report said that the 11-year-old had burn scars, other scars, numerous abrasions and injuries to her abdomen, buttocks, back and chin. The 9-year-old boy suffered injuries spanning his entire body in various phases of scabbing and healing, in addition to facial abrasions, cuts and “loop marks on his legs, injuries too numerous to count.”

Rafael Loera, a teacher’s aide in the Tolleson Unified School District, told police Maribel Loera was the child abuser, but they both face charges of child abuse and concealing a body. Rafael Loera additionally faces an arson charge for the fire that led Phoenix firefighters to discover the body in the Loeras’ attic Jan. 28 — about an hour after the 9 year old and 4 year old were removed from the home.

The 4 year old is reportedly not a blood relative of Priscilla Marquez’s.

Priscilla Marquez says she hasn’t used meth since 2013, not long after Charisma Marquez and her now-11-year-old sister and now-9-year-old brother were adopted by the Loeras. Priscilla Marquez hopes her children will return to live with her once they are 18, as she continues to save money for a future home purchase. She also wants justice and plans to look into legal options, she said.

On Jan. 20, an 11-year-old girl left alone in the Loeras’ residence for two days called police because she was hungry. Upon arrival, police called the Arizona Department of Child Safety after noticing signs the child was being abused. Child protective workers then arrived and removed the child from the home that day, returning on Jan. 28 to remove the 9-year-old boy and the 4-year-old girl from the home. Child protection officials said they were unaware until Jan. 28 that other children lived in the home.

About an hour after the last two children were removed from the home Jan. 28, Phoenix firefighters found the remains of another child in the attic drywall as they put out a fire Rafael Loera later said he lit. A fire he was hesitant to let firefighters into the house to extinguish.

The Loeras were then arrested, and a homicide investigation is underway in tandem with the Department of Child Safety investigation.