Thinking that his children were “being attacked by evil”, high-on-meth father drowned his minor daughter in baptism pool, sentenced

While the public, the government officials and the authorities are focused on solving the trend of rising violent crime cases in the last couple of years across the country, another trend goes unnoticed and it might end up even harder to be put under control.

What we are talking about is the rising number of drug addict parents, people who have chosen to become something else in their lives rather than ordinary and responsible parents. If not properly treated, this people usually come to a point where they are not capable of taking care for both themselves and their children.

This was the case with one California father who was recently sentenced and will spend the next eleven years behind bars after he was found guilty for drowning his 4-year-old daughter in a baptismal pool of a Catholic church while he was high on meth.

According to the police report, the father identified as the 47-year-old G. Mendoza had been smoking methamphetamine for three days and began believing his two youngest children were “being attacked by evil.”

Completely lost and not aware about the reality, he took his 9-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter to the local Baptist Catholic Church in an effort to “fight the evil” in them. Mendoza’s idea was to find a priest and help him with the process, but the church was empty and he couldn’t fine one there.

That’s the moment when he decided to get things done on himself and took his both minor children into a cross-shaped baptismal pool at least a foot deep, court documents show. The court records indicate that he was high on meth at the time when the incident happened, as he was not aware of what he was doing and his 4-year-old daughter drowned in the pool.

He then carried the girl’s body to a nearby police station and stood naked in the station’s back parking lot yelling “help” and “police” in Spanish as he held his fully clothed and soaked daughter, authorities said. His 9-year-old son stood next to him wearing only shorts.

The girl was immediately transferred to hospital and pronounced dead shortly after arriving there. Following the incident, Mendoza was arrested and the investigation had started.

The medical examination showed meth in his system. Mendoza had been recovered drug addict, but he had recently begun smoking methamphetamine again, which he hid from his wife, and had begun to see and hear things.

According to the Press Democrat, Mendoza said he went to the church in search of “holy water,” which he said is a tradition in the Catholic Church “to help get rid of demons inside someone, like an exorcism.” He believed he could get rid of the “spirits in himself and his children” with the water, according to the report.

The fatal incident took place in November 2016. Mendoza was sentenced to 11 years behind bars last week as a part of a negotiated plea to manslaughter that Mendoza agreed to as he was facing trial on murder charges, which could have put him in prison for 25 years to life.

Monica Doyle

Editor-in-Chief

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