Witness Called Hotline After Boy Reported Alleged Abuse by His Mother
LOS ANGELES—Less than three years before his death in 2018, a 10-year-old boy told a school vice principal he had been abused by his mother, prompting a report to a child abuse hotline, the then-vice principal testified Feb. 8 in the murder trial of the boy’s mother and her boyfriend.
Gia Greaux, who was a vice principal at the time at Lincoln Elementary School in Lancaster, told Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta that she called the hotline on Sept. 18, 2015, after Anthony Avalos told her that he was being abused at home.
Her testimony came during the non-jury trial of the boy’s mother, Heather Maxine Barron, and her live-in boyfriend, Kareem Ernesto Leiva, who are charged with one count each of murder and torture involving Anthony’s June 2018 death, along with two counts of child abuse involving the boy’s half-siblings, identified in court only as “Destiny O.” and “Rafael O.”…