Guilty verdict for San Antonio stepmom who starved 4-year-old

A jury took less than an hour to find Miranda Casarez, the stepmother of 4-year-old Benjamin “Benji” Cervera, guilty of starving him to death in 2021.

Her lawyer then put her on the stand Wednesday afternoon as he tried to convince jurors to go easy on her. Casarez, 25, could get life in prison for injury to a child causing serious bodily injury by omission.

The case had been chronicled by the defendant herself, in dozens of videos and photographs that showed Benji’s decline — and revealed him crying and begging for food, including on the day he died.

Benji was unresponsive when he arrived at Christus Children’s Hospital on Aug. 17, 2021. He was about a month from his fifth birthday and weighed 28 pounds when he was pronounced dead.

Brandon Lee Cervera, the boy’s father, faces the same charge and is awaiting trial on the first-degree felony.

TESTIMONY: Hand sanitizer, hot sauce forced down boy’s throat, brother testifies

Defense attorney Anthony B. Cantrell said Casarez “loved being a mom.” 

“She knew something was wrong, she set up the doctor’s appointments” for Benji, as she did for all the children in her household, he said. 

“She has a tattoo of Benji’s birth and death (dates) on her arm,” Cantrell said.

The jury had heard more than a week of testimony, much of it depicting the boy’s four-month deterioration at the Northeast Side apartment where Casarez and Cervera lived. The couple also had two other boys from previous relationships and an infant daughter.

Crying on the witness stand, Casarez said she grew up in Pleasanton, was raped when she was younger and began cutting herself. But she said her stepsons and her own boy had developed a good relationship when she moved in with Cervera. 

“I loved taking care of him,” Casarez said of Benji.

She said she began taking videos and photographs of him when his behavior changed because she wanted Cervera to see what was going on. 

Cantrell said Casarez has applied for probation, and he urged the jury to consider it, calling his client “a very decent, quiet person who loves children, who loved Benji.”

Earlier Wednesday, arguing for a guilty verdict, prosecutor Thomas Damico noted that the defense disputed that Casarez intentionally and knowingly withheld food and water from Benji. He asked jurors to recall the evidence they heard and saw, as well as to use their common sense. 

“There were locks on the pantry and the refrigerator, in the children’s rooms,” Damico said. “Remember the defendant’s statements (to police) and consider the evidence — photographs and videos, and testimony from experts.”

Cantrell told the jury that Benji wasn’t starved and that it was likely the boy had underlying health issues. 

Casarez was driving to the hospital when Benji stopped breathing, and a 911 dispatcher told her to stop and begin chest compressions. Cantrell said it took several minutes for an ambulance to reach them, which contributed to Benji’s death.

“This is a very difficult case,” Cantrell said, accusing authorities of “tunnel vision” in bringing the charge, particularly San Antonio police and Bexar County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kimberley Molina, who found Benji starved to death and ruled it a homicide. 

Cantrell told the panel that Molina did not properly investigate other ways that Benji could have died — Type 1 diabetes or any other metabolic ailment — because Molina just used information from San Antonio police Detective Lawrence Saiz.

The defense attorney throughout the trial said the videos showed Benji was not a normal child, had behavioral or developmental issues and likely was autistic. Cantrell said the temper tantrums the child had, constant crying and begging for bread and water, and getting it and continuing to ask for more were an indication of autism.  He also said Benji could have had a malabsorption disorder that no one investigated.

Prosecutor Michael Villarreal attacked the defense experts who had suggested these possibilities, calling their experience and depth of research in the case inadequate.

“You got to meet the monster that Benji lived with,” Villarreal told the jury in his closing argument. 

The prosecutor compared the testimony of defense witnesses and those whom he and Damico presented and said there was no doubt Benji was starved.

Regarding defense witnesses who challenged the assertion that Casarez withheld food, Villarreal asked the jury about the locks that were placed in the kitchen on the refrigerator and the food pantry, and he brought back the photos showing them.