Anthony Avalos torture-murder case: Mother, boyfriend sentenced to life in prison without parole

A Lancaster woman and her boyfriend were sentenced Tuesday morning for torturing and murdering the woman's 10-year-old son Anthony Avalos in 2018.

Heather Maxine Barron and Kareem Ernesto Leiva were found guilty on March 7 on one count each of torture and murder. A judge found them guilty in a non-jury trial. Tuesday morning, Barron and Leiva were both sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Barron, now 33, and Leiva, 37, tortured Anthony Avalos during the last five days of his life, according to prosecutors. Avalos was whipped with a belt and a looped cord; he was dropped on his head repeatedly; and hot sauce was poured on his face and mouth, according to prosecutors.

Barron called 911 at about 12:15 p.m. on June 20, 2018, to report her son was unresponsive. Avalos died in the hospital the next day. Investigators deemed the boy's death suspicious.

Members of Avalos's family, including his father, filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles County alleging failure on the part of multiple social workers, who had previously visited the Lancaster home. The county settled with attorneys for the family for $32 million in May 2022.

From 2013 until his death in 2018, reports of abuse were made to the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services that Anthony and his six half-siblings were denied food and water, beaten, sexually abused, dangled upside-down from a staircase, forced to crouch for hours while holding heavy objects, locked in small spaces with no access to a bathroom, forced to fight each other and forced to eat from the trash, according to the plaintiffs' court papers.