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California Boy Yonatan Aguilar Reportedly Sedated, Locked In Tiny Closet For Years By Mother Before Being Found Dead

By Patricia Ramirez
Published on: 12:18 PST, Oct 28, 2016

Yonatan Daniel Aguilar, an 11-year-old California boy, seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth three years ago. That’s when the child stopped attending school, prompting questions from his teachers and school administrators. According to the little California boy’s mother, 39-year-old Veronica Aguilar, her son had been sent to an “institution in Mexico,” court records reveal.

However, the truth of what happened to Yonatan Aguilar is allegedly much darker; to many, the case of the California boy illustrates one of the most disturbing accounts of systematic child abuse they’ve ever heard. Before reading further, be warned that the details of the case of Yonatan Aguilar are horrific.

As Fox 13 Now reports, California boy Yonatan Aguilar was found dead in his family’s home on August 22. It was that day that his mother’s alleged lies ultimately unraveled and the dark secret she’d been keeping regarding Yonatan was revealed not only to local law enforcement, but to her new husband as well.

According to investigators in the Yonatan Aguilar case, the California boy, who was 11 years old when he died, had been kept locked in a tiny bedroom closet for years prior to his death. When his tiny, emaciated body was found, he weighed just 34 pounds. His remains were covered in sores from being pressed against the hard tile floor in a closet too small for him to even straighten his legs out.

Investigators believe that Yonatan Aguilar spent most of the three years since his mysterious disappearance heavily sedated, meaning that standing to stretch would have been an impossibility. Reportedly, the California boy’s mother kept her hidden, neglected, and abused son quiet by dosing him with liquid sleeping medication.

Allegedly, Veronica Aguilar kept her son’s existence at her home hidden from the world, even from the boy’s stepfather, Jose Pinzon, who lived at the home during the three years that Yonatan was supposedly at an institution in Mexico. In fact, court documents indicate that the only ones who knew of the California boy’s whereabouts, other than his mother, were his three siblings. Reportedly, Veronica had “forbidden” her other children to tell anyone the horrible truth.

Even as two of the kids had to sleep every night just on the other side of the closet door that imprisoned Yonatan.

On August 22, Veronica told her husband that Yonatan Aguilar had died. It was only then that she showed him what was inside the closet where the California boy had been kept for three years. After seeing the emaciated remains of his stepson, Jose Pinzon immediately ran to a nearby 7-11 convenience store and called police.

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When authorities responded to the scene of the horrific and almost unbelievable crime, the found the tiny child deceased, surrounded by medicine cups holding “pink and red liquid” within in his reach. Presumably, the liquid in the cups was the sleeping medication used to keep 11-year-old Yonatan Aguilar sedated.

According to investigators, the little boy’s hair had begun to fall out and he showed signs of physical abuse as well as extreme malnutrition.

Fox 6 Now reports that California boy Yonatan Aguilar had been diagnosed as autistic prior to his deadly imprisonment in his home’s closet. Additionally, he had been the subject of repeated DCFS abuse inquiries leading up to his mysterious disappearance. Reportedly, Yonatan Aguilar’s family had been reported to DCFS six times before the boy went missing, and between 2009 and 2012, his risk of abuse had been marked “high” by the department.

However, despite the repeated reports, DCFS workers never opened an official case connected to Yonatan Aguilar. As such, police were never alerted to the allegations of abuse and no police investigation into the California boy’s domestic safety ever took place. California DCFS has spoken out in its own defense regarding Yonatan Aguilar since his remains were found.

“…everyone interacting with the child and his family thought the child was in a safe environment.”

According to at least one of the DCFS reports, the California boy’s teachers reported suspected child neglect/abuse in 2012 when the little boy came to school hungry (to the point of hoarding food, according to reports) and with a black eye.

Veronica Aguilar was arrested and booked by the Los Angeles Police Department back in August. She has been charged with murder and child abuse and remains incarcerated on $2 million bail. She has pleaded not guilty in the case. Her other three children are ages 14, 16, and 18; the two minor children are now in state’s custody.

If convicted, Yonatan Aguilar’s mother faces a maximum sentence of 15-years-to-life for the California boy’s death.

[Featured Image by Los Angeles Police Department]

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