commentary by Patrick H. Moore
In one of the most appalling cases of child abuse resulting in the death of a toddler that I have ever heard about, the apparent main “bad actor”, the mother’s boyfriend, Joshua Beard, 20, of Arlington, Texas appears to be a rather normal looking young man, while the mother and reportedly reluctant participant, Alexis Botello, 17, is definitely a wholesome looking young lady.
Sebastian Murdoch of the Huffington Post writes:
A young Texas couple have been arrested in the murder of an 18-month-old child who was brutally abused before being stomped to death and buried under a bridge wrapped in a blanket, police said.
Joshua Beard, 20, and Alexis Botello, 17, had only been dating for a few months prior to the death of Botello’s daughter, Tylea Moore, on July 4.
An Arlington, Texas, police affidavit obtained by The Huffington Post states that Beard called the toddler a “little demon” while striking her repeatedly and that he also abused the mother when she attempted to stop him (Note: The following description is not for the faint at heart):
“Botello said Beard was pushing and yelling at Tylea. Botello kept yelling at him to stop, that she was just a baby and didn’t understand. Beard then started yelling and hitting Botello.
“Botello went into Tylea’s room and picked her up. Tylea looked awful. Her bottom was swollen, she had bruises on her ribs, chest, arms, legs, and even on the top of her feet. She also had bite marks all over her. Tylea had two cuts on her mouth, one on the top lip and one on the bottom lip.”
After that, according to Botello, Beard began punching her and then allegedly grabbed the toddler and slammed her down on the bed so hard that she bounced off and landed on the ground. Then he continued to hit the child with closed fists and began stomping on Tylea’s stomach “over and over again,” according to the police report.
A short time later, the child died.
Although the mother Botello appears to have tried hard to stop Beard from killing her daughter, there is no doubt that she was complicit in attempting to cover up Tylea’s death.
Once Beard had completed his “dirty work” and the child was dead, the young couple went to a Walmart where they bought gloves and two shovels. According to investigators, they were easily identified leaving the store on a surveillance video.
They then dug a grave under a bridge in a remote area near Springtown, wrapped the little girl in a small blue blanket and buried her, according to police.
In a decision that may well save her from serving years in a Texas state prison, Botello had the good sense to go to the police some time after Tylea’s death. Botello admitted her involvement and led law enforcement to where they’d buried the child under under the bridge.
Beard has been charged with capital murder. His bail has been set at $1 million. For her part, Botello is facing adult charges of tampering with evidence of a human corpse and injury to a child. Her bail has been set at $125,000, a fraction of Beard’s.
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Tylea’s father Chris Moore, a U.S. Marine, refuses to believe Botello was a willing participant in the crime. He states rather touchingly:
“I hope that they see that she was in an abusive relationship. I mean, we have pictures of bruises all over her.”
It’s unclear to me whether the pictures Chris is referring to were taken after Beard batted her around while he was killing Tylea, or if they stem from earlier abusive actions on Beard’s part.
Chris appears to still carry a torch for Botello and last saw Tylea when he was home earlier this year on leave from the Marines. Chris was also there when Botello was arrested.
“My heart dropped…whenever I watched them put the cuffs on her and put her in the car and say I couldn’t talk to her anymore…I screamed at her and told her I loved her… I can’t believe there’s evil like that in the world.”
Oddly, Chris stated he and Beard grew up in the same neighborhood and even hung out together as kids.
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Although Chris Moore stated that he “can’t believe there’s evil like that in the world,” this may be a bit disingenuous considering that as a US Marine, he could hardly be unaware, if he stopped to think about it, that bodies of fighting men such as the Marines would not even exist unless “there was evil such as this in the world.”
Of course, many people are in the habit of making a moral distinction between “state-sanctioned violence” such as that which occurs in warfare and random, unsanctioned violence such as that which was perpetrated by this fiend, Beard. This, I would think, is a moral/ethical dilemma which is routinely rationalized away by most people who decry individual violence but accept sanctioned, military violence as a matter of course.
I got a call yesterday morning from an old and dear friend, a Vietnam veteran who searched tunnels and walked point in Vietnam, and eventually had his leg blown off when he stepped on a mine. He killed a few Vietnamese during his tour of duty and, of course, witnessed the deaths of many Vietnamese and more than a few Americans. Some of the Vietnamese who died were women and children who were gunned down without cause by members of his company.
When he returned to the U.S., he was never the same and remains a PTSD veteran to this day. The war scarred him irrevocably and he has had a very hard life as a result of it. He has never truly gotten over the guilt of seeing his fellow American soldiers gun down women and children more or less for the fun of it.
There is another moral dilemma for us to deal with here. What should be done with Beard, assuming he is guilty as charged, which certainly appears to be the case? As our number one death penalty state, I strongly suspect Beard, if convicted, will be eligible for Death Row. Many Americans will whole-heartedly hope that he “fries”, and my initial instinct is to agree with them, even though I generally oppose the death penalty. Upon reflection, though, I realize that to “murder” Beard in a state-sanctioned act of ritualized violence will not solve a thing and will only detract from what remains of our communal humanity.
Furthermore, something no doubt happened to Beard in his development to transform him into the evil man who beat that poor child to death. So I would think life in prison without the possibility of parole would be sufficient punishment and will emphatically send the message that crimes of this nature will never be tolerated.
Meanwhile, a little child has been crushed out existence, a young mother has had her life irrevocably transformed for the worse, a US Marine is grieving and god only knows what the “bad actor” is thinking.