MarylandMark
Charter Member
After telling police that “Mom cooks me in the oven like a turkey,” a 4-year-old Hamtramck girl and her four siblings are in foster care and their mother is facing years in prison on torture charges.
Reyna Valentino, 40, went to a neighbor’s house after burning the girl in the oven at 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 23, begging the neighbor to call police.
“It’s really sad,” said Mamun Roshid, 16, a neighbor who arrived home from school that afternoon to find an ambulance in front of his house after Valentino knocked on his family’s door.
Roshid said the scene was a far cry from the affection he had witnessed previously between Valentino, her husband, the 4-year-old, a 5-year-old daughter, 7- and 8-year-old sons and an infant. “Actually, they all looked pretty happy,” he said.
Hamtramck Police Detective Ben Bielecki said Valentino asked police in her 911 call to come get her.
“She said, ‘I’m going to hurt my family,’” Bielecki explained. “When our guys got there, it was pretty bad.”
While the father had gone to pick the two boys up from school, Valentino used either a nail or a screwdriver heated over the stove to burn the 4-year-old girl’s lower eyelid. Then she put the girl in the turned-on oven, creating sear lines on her back from the oven’s interior.
“She said that her heart’s hurt and broke,” the 4-year-old told police, according to Bielecki.
The girl, the detective said, also told police that: “ ‘Mommy doesn’t love me anymore. Mama’s going to hurt me again. She hurts me with a nail and cooks me in the oven like a turkey.”
Valentino’s other daughter told investigators her mother once hit her with a crowbar. All five children are now in foster care and doing fine, Bielecki said. He said the 4-year-old’s wounds are healing and she’s doing well, too.
Valentino was immediately taken to Detroit Receiving Hospital. She was arraigned Thursday in 31st District Court in Hamtramck on two counts of torture, and two counts of child abuse and bond was set at $1 million. Her next hearing is set for Feb. 12.
Bielecki said social services workers have been involved with the woman in the past, but declined to elaborate.
At the family’s white bungalow Thursday, a license plate proclaiming “1 God” sat amidst the lace curtains in the front window. No one answered the door.
http://www.freep.com/article/20090205/NEWS02/90205110/?imw=Y
Reyna Valentino, 40, went to a neighbor’s house after burning the girl in the oven at 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 23, begging the neighbor to call police.
“It’s really sad,” said Mamun Roshid, 16, a neighbor who arrived home from school that afternoon to find an ambulance in front of his house after Valentino knocked on his family’s door.
Roshid said the scene was a far cry from the affection he had witnessed previously between Valentino, her husband, the 4-year-old, a 5-year-old daughter, 7- and 8-year-old sons and an infant. “Actually, they all looked pretty happy,” he said.
Hamtramck Police Detective Ben Bielecki said Valentino asked police in her 911 call to come get her.
“She said, ‘I’m going to hurt my family,’” Bielecki explained. “When our guys got there, it was pretty bad.”
While the father had gone to pick the two boys up from school, Valentino used either a nail or a screwdriver heated over the stove to burn the 4-year-old girl’s lower eyelid. Then she put the girl in the turned-on oven, creating sear lines on her back from the oven’s interior.
“She said that her heart’s hurt and broke,” the 4-year-old told police, according to Bielecki.
The girl, the detective said, also told police that: “ ‘Mommy doesn’t love me anymore. Mama’s going to hurt me again. She hurts me with a nail and cooks me in the oven like a turkey.”
Valentino’s other daughter told investigators her mother once hit her with a crowbar. All five children are now in foster care and doing fine, Bielecki said. He said the 4-year-old’s wounds are healing and she’s doing well, too.
Valentino was immediately taken to Detroit Receiving Hospital. She was arraigned Thursday in 31st District Court in Hamtramck on two counts of torture, and two counts of child abuse and bond was set at $1 million. Her next hearing is set for Feb. 12.
Bielecki said social services workers have been involved with the woman in the past, but declined to elaborate.
At the family’s white bungalow Thursday, a license plate proclaiming “1 God” sat amidst the lace curtains in the front window. No one answered the door.
http://www.freep.com/article/20090205/NEWS02/90205110/?imw=Y
