Sexual assault now seems unlikely in Iowa City toddler's death, police say

UPDATE: New information made public Friday indicates that five days before an Iowa City toddler died of injuries that police believe resulted from abuse, a Department of Human Services worker observed bruises on the child's face.

The DHS didn't tell police about details of their encounter with 20-month-old Marcus Balderas on April 25 until after the child died on April 30.

But Iowa City police Lt. Doug Hart said Marcus' caregivers on April 25 gave DHS workers a reasonable explanation for the bruises consistent with him being a toddler, and police have no concerns about how the DHS handled the case.

“Everyone involved in this investigation is taken back by the details of this, and a lot of people are second guessing themselves based on what happened,” Hart said, adding that the DHS, on that day, had no way of knowing that abuse was going on.

“I guarantee if they had, they certainly would have taken some action,” Hart said.

Iowa City police were called to the mobile home of Jorge Perez, 20, and Mireya Balderas, 18, at 2018 Waterfront Drive, at 12:06 p.m. April 30 on a report of a child having difficulty breathing. When they arrived, according to a search warrant application filed with the Johnson County Clerk of Court's Office on Friday, they found Marcus Balderas in apparent distress and vomiting, according to the documents.

The child was in the care of Perez at the time, according to the application, and responding paramedics noticed bruising on Marcus' face, including two small bruises and one larger bruise.

The child was rushed to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, where he was pronounced dead. A medical exam determined the child had broken ribs, multiple bruises on his head, face, back, and stomach, internal injuries and subdural bleeding in his head.

A final autopsy determined the manner of death as a homicide, resulting from blunt force injuries to the child's head. Perez admitted to hitting the child on the face with his knuckles, holding a pillow over the child's face because he wouldn't sleep, stepping on the boy''s stomach, throwing the child in the air and not catching him, and slapping the toddler in the face, according to police.

Balderas, according to police, has admitted to hitting her son in the face numerous times, holding a pillow over his head to get him to sleep, and witnessing her boyfriend abuse the child, the release said.

When police arrived at the house on April 30, according to the search warrant documents, Perez told officers that he had “put Marcus down with a cup and left to use the restroom.” While in the restroom, Perez told police, he heard Marcus coughing. He came out of the bathroom, according to the application, and found Marcus passed out.

Perez said he tried to perform CPR and then took Marcus to a neighbor's home to call 911 because he didn't have a phone, according to the documents.  On the way to the Iowa City Police Department, Perez reportedly made an unsolicited comment, “This is all my fault,” according to the search warrant application.

Hours after Marcus' death, police arrested Perez in connection with the incident that DHS workers were called to investigate five days earlier. Perez, charged with child endangerment without injury in that case, was accused of leaving Marcus home alone for about 20 minutes on April 25.

Search warrant documents released Friday indicate that the DHS worker involved in the April 25 child endangerment case “observed bruising on the child's face” at that time.

And, after learning on Friday that a DHS worker noticed bruising before Marcus died, the child's grandfather Jesus Balderas told The Gazette, “My grandson should have been removed at that point.”

But DHS spokesman Roger Munns said “social workers see bruises all the time.”

“Most of them are not cause for alarm unless there is separate evidence that the child is at risk,” Munns said in a statement. “The observation of a bruise is not in itself a sign that the child is in danger.”

Perez and Balderas were arrested in connection with the child's death on June 10. Perez faces two counts of child endangerment resulting in death - one for a series of assaults that police say led to the death of Marcus Balderas, and one for the suspected acts on April 30 that authorities say finally took the child's life.

Balderas faces one count of child endangerment resulting in death on accusations she participated in the abuse.