Children Of Mom Found Dead In Dania Beach Canal Sent To Foster Care
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A court hearing to determine what will happen to two children struck by tragedy was held Tuesday.
The father of those children was arrested last week and charged in the death of their mother.
Maribel Torres' body appeared to be found in a Dania Beach canal near Griffin Road and I-95 last Thursday.
Miami-Dade Police say Maribel's husband Jimmy killed her and tried to dispose of the body.
Relatives filed into a Miami-Dade courtroom Tuesday for a custody battle involving the Torres' children.
"A witness came forward that [Jimmy] confessed to murdering my sister, put her in a box and put her in a canal," said Mabel Montesino, Maribel's sister. "The witness took detectives to the canal where they took out the box and my sister's remains in it."
In court there were allegations made that the victim's daughter found a pornographic video of her father.
"She went on to show me photos on her phone of her father engaging in oral sex with a minor that she had saved on her phone," said Montesino.
A relative told the judge the victim's daughter has been asking what happened to her mother.
"And she asked me if I thought her father had killed her mother and I didn't know how to respond to it and I told her to google her mom which just said that she was missing," Montesino said.
The judge decided the children were better off with the state than with family for now.
"My gut feeling is that the children will be better off at this time in foster care," said Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesias. "No one, no one, no one can talk to these kids about the tragedy in their life. Whoever's responsible, whoever's not, they've lost two parents."
