Authorities today identified an 11-year-old Echo Park boy whose mother was arrested in connection with his death.
The body of the child, identified as Yonatan Daniel Aguilar, was found by the boy’s stepfather Monday afternoon wrapped in a blanket in a closet of their Echo Park residence in the 2100 block of Santa Ynez Street, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Officers responded to the radio call of a suspicious death involving a child around 2:15 p.m. Monday in the 2200 block of West Sunset Avenue, where they met the child’s stepfather Jose Pinzon, police said.
Pinzon told an officer his wife, Veronica Aguilar, told him that her son was dead before Pinzon found the body, police said. Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics responded and pronounced the victim dead at scene, according to police.
The investigation revealed that the child suffered from malnutrition and physical abuse and had been dead for a few hours, police said. An autopsy was pending to determine the cause of death, according to the coroner’s office.
Aguilar was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment resulting in the child’s death, police said. The case has not yet been presented to the District Attorney’s office, an office spokeswoman said.
Police are trying to find the child’s father as part of their investigation, according to reports from the scene.
Aguilar, 39, was being held in lieu of $100,000 bail, according to online inmate records provided by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
