A Missouri boy recently called 911 for help and could do nothing but listen as his father brutally beat his mother with a hammer, authorities have confirmed.
The son of Suzette Flores47 i Felipe Ayala, III34, called police shortly before 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 7 and spoke to dispatchers as the alleged hit unfolded.
“I need somebody, my dad is hitting my mom; I need a police officer,” the boy allegedly told the 911 dispatcher, explaining what was going on as best he could. “I don’t know what he’s doing to my mom. I hear blows, she doesn’t scream or anything anymore. She’s just silent. I don’t hear her anymore. I don’t know what he did to her.”
The boy, police said, started crying and told the 911 dispatcher he was “very scared.”
When he called, dispatchers asked the boy for his location inside the house. He told them he was outside the garage of the Springfield home where the beating was taking place.
“They’ve been doing this forever and I’m tired of it,” the boy allegedly said over the phone. “I think my father is coming. Are they on their way, ma’am? I am very frightened, ma’am.”
According to an affidavit of probable cause seen by Us Weeklythe fatal beating lasted between 15 and 20 minutes. A neighbor told police he saw Ayala begin the attack as the garage door began to close. When asked to reproduce the movement Ayala was making, the neighbor began “making a downward movement from the shoulder … consistent with a hammer movement.”
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Police have charged Ayala with first degree murder and armed criminal action. He is being held without bail and has not yet been asked to plead to the charges.
A GoFundMe campaign has been started for Flores’ children, who says she “wanted nothing more than a good life for herself and her children. Her life was taken suddenly and brutally. She was robbed of the chance to see her babies grow up and her kisses, and they were robbed of their life with their mother and grandmother.”
The boy allegedly told police that Ayala had been carrying a knife before the fatal attack and said he had mentioned that “people were coming to get him,” the affidavit says. Ayala and Flores began fighting and arguing in the garage and the boy told police he saw Ayala choke Flores and hit him in the head.
“You made me do this,” Ayala allegedly told him, the boy told police, according to the affidavit. “Ayala looked at him and the other minors in the house saying they were next,” the affidavit added.
Three children were home at the time of the alleged murder.
Detectives continue to investigate the case and ask that anyone with relevant information contact the Springfield Police Department at (417) 864-1810 or call anonymously at Crime Stoppers at (417) 869-TIPS (8477) or online at p3tips.com.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Helpline at 1-800-799-7233or go to thehotline.org. All calls are free and confidential. The hotline is available 24 hours a day in more than 170 languages.