Background: News footage of the Moorhead, Minn. apartment where Valerie Zamora lives with her family (KVLY). Inset: Valerie Zamora (Cass County Sheriff’s Office).
A Minnesota woman who allegedly stopped by a store while purportedly rushing her 20-month-old son to the hospital has been charged with murder after the medical examiner ruled the boy’s death a homicide.
WCCO, a local CBS affiliate, reported that the 32-year-old mother — identified as Valerie Zamora by local NBC affiliate KVLY — was charged with second-degree unintentional murder after her 20-month-old son died at a hospital in Moorhead, a city on the state’s border near Fargo, North Dakota. According to court documents obtained by WCCO, Zamora rushed her son to the hospital on May 15 with her partner and at least one more of her three children — but according to police, the family made a stop at a local Walmart on their way there.
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According to court documents, investigators said that the boy became extremely ill on May 14. The next day, he reportedly showed no improvement, and witnesses told police that they urged Zamora to bring the boy to the hospital. Police stated that Zamora instead gave the boy Tylenol and Gatorade and ran errands.
That evening, when one of Zamora’s other children got home from school between 4:30 and 5 p.m., she “immediately” noticed that the boy was in need of medical care. Zamora allegedly told her that she would take the toddler to the hospital once her partner got home.
The girl told police that at one point, she was afraid that the little boy was going to die while she held him.
On the night of May 15, Zamora and her family finally decided to take the little boy to the hospital. On their way there, surveillance cameras caught them at 10:12 p.m. as they stopped at a Walmart store where Zamora bought Pedialyte, a drink for dehydration. When Zamora’s partner ran into the store to tell her that the boy was vomiting blood, they all left the store and “sped” to the hospital, according to the documents.
The little boy was dead by 11:05 p.m.
When Zamora was questioned by police, she said that the boy had started vomiting the day before, but they accused her of changing her story. Police confronted her about the bruises they observed on the boy’s body, and she reportedly explained that he bruised easily.
According to the court documents, the county coroner who performed an autopsy on the boy stated that he had suffered blunt force injuries due to an assault and had rib fractures and contusions. The coroner ruled the manner of death as homicide.
WCCO reported that during a subsequent interview with Zamora, she admitted that she hesitated to seek medical care for her toddler because there was “obviously neglect,” and she feared that social services would take her children.
Zamora was arrested in Fargo on Friday and was booked into the Cass County Jail. She is expected to be extradited to Moorhead where she faces a charge of second-degree unintentional murder.
