A waitress noticed bruises on a boy and asked if he needed help. His stepfather was just found guilty of abuse.
An Orlando man been found guilty of abuse after a waitress noticed concerning signs and helped save his stepchild. On Monday, a jury found Timothy Lee Wilson guilty of 2 counts of false imprisonment on a child under the age of 13, three counts of aggravated child abuse with a weapon, four counts of aggravated child abuse and one count of child neglect, according to a news release from the state attorney's office.
On New Year's Day 2021, police received a 911 call from waitress Flaviane Carvalho, who worked at the Mrs. Potato restaurant. She noticed a family of four enter the restaurant at around 11 p.m. and saw one child was being secluded from the rest of the family. He was being denied food and Carvalho noticed bruises on him.
She wrote a sign asking "Do you need help? OK," and held it up behind his stepfather. The 11-year-old boy acknowledged that he did need help. She called 911 and days later Wilson and the boy's mother, Kristen Swann, were taken into custody.
Investigators later found that he had been tortured, maliciously punished and deprived of food and water for days at a time. The boy was also kept away from his mother and sibling, in a separate hotel room used for storage, a search warrant found. The room's peep hole was covered by duct tape.
The boy was made to do military-style exercises and was even hung upside down from a door by his neck and feet. At one point, he was handcuffed to a dolly cart on Christmas Day. Investigators also found multiple items used as weapons such as metal pole, a wooden broom, a dolly cart, handcuffs, and ratchet straps used to tie the victim up.
For taking action and potentially saving the boy's life, Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried presented Carvalho with a Florida Cabinet proclamation at a news conference last year. January 28, 2021, was proclaimed Flaviane Carvalho Child Advocacy Day in the state of Florida.
"I didn't expect anything like that," Carvalho said at the news conference.
"Please, if you see something, especially against kids and old people, the most vulnerable — don't be afraid to do something about it," Carvalho said.
After just two hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict on all counts as charged for Wilson, according to the news release. He is set to be sentenced on Friday, August 19, 2022. CBS News has reached out to the state attorney's office and Orlando Police Department for more information and is awaiting response.
