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BROWNSVILLE — The trial of the first of three defendants in the January 2021 murder of a Sebastian teenager began Tuesday in the 197th state District Court.
Jesse Harrison Jr., a seventh grader at Lyford Middle School, died at Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen after his mother, Sabrina Loredo, 33, called Willacy County Emergency Medical Service to report he wasn’t breathing properly.
Ruben Gonzalez Cordoba, 39, Loredo’s boyfriend, was the first to go on trial.
Cordoba and Loredo along with her mother, Antonia Gonzalez, 56, were all charged with murder and numerous other charges, including starvation, beatings and other types of abuse.
Gonzalez Cordoba loudly stated his plea of not guilty.
After hearing opening statements from a Cameron County District Attorney prosecutor and defense attorney Nat Perez, testimony from Yvonne Mendoza, the boy’s special education teacher, took up much of the morning session as prosecutors displayed a recording of a Zoom video session about a Spanish lesson.
The school began using Zoom during the pandemic.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Mendoza testified that the boy constantly ate snacks from the basket provided in the classroom.
After converting to teaching on Zoom, he seemed to have trouble concentrating and would use hand signals rather than verbally responding to her questions while discussing the day’s lessons.
A recording of Mendoza attempting to get the boy to respond and to unmute his home computer was followed by Gonzalez repeatedly scolding him to answer the teacher and to pay attention to the information on the computer screen.
Other voices in the room included an unseen man and another woman, possibly Gonzalez Cordoba and Loredo.
An EMT testified that it was raining when they went to the home at 2:56 a.m. on Jan. 23, 2021 and were unable to get a stretcher in through the front door.
The boy’s ribs and collar bones jutted out distinctly. He was so underweight, that one of the EMT’s easily carried him out to the stretcher that was left out in the rain.
“He was all bone and there was hardly any meat,” the EMT said.
His breathing was very shallow, the EMT said.
Harrison was so thin that a mechanical CPR machine would not work so one EMT gave him chest compressions all the way to the hospital.
Testimony continues Wednesday.
Here’s the latest update:
Witness in Willacy County child abuse murder walks back statements to police
