Warning: disturbing content
A California man faces 80 years behind bars after he was convicted of child abuse so heinous that a district attorney called it “easily one of the worst cases his office had seen in some time.”
Back in January, an unidentified child reported to school officials that abuse had occurred at the child’s home. In response to the report of abuse, investigators went to a home in Magalia, California, an unincorporated area of the state, about 90 miles north of Sacramento. They were looking for 41-year-old Robert Chavez, who shared the residence with 38-year-old Amanda Johnson, 35-year-old Kelsey Cabrera, and the women’s five children, all minors.
Chavez, Johnson, and Cabrera were in “a polyamorous relationship,” according to the report from Butte County District Attorney Michael Ramsey. Chavez is not believed to be the father of any of the children.
What police discovered through their subsequent investigations was, as Ramsey described it, “truly horrific.” The children at the home later told police that Chavez regularly abused them physically and sexually for about a year. They reported that he fired BB guns at them, injured them with whips, kicked and punched them in the face, and even burned one little girl’s face with cigarettes.
According to reports, Chavez routinely raped and molested the young girls living in his home, who range in age from 4 to 16. The district attorney’s report also claimed that Chavez took “pleasure in torturing a young boy in the home,” beating the boy until he could no longer stand and leaving extensive bruising. He then threatened the children with further abuse if they dared to report his behavior to the authorities.
Police later described the evidence against Chavez as “staggering,” and District Attorney Ramsey said that the abuse was so commonplace in the home “that it was impossible to grasp the full extent of what the children suffered.”
On Thursday, Chavez pled no contest to “multiple counts of rape and [molestation]” of the young girls, as well as one count of torture for his abuse of the young boy. He also pled guilty to a count of mayhem in an unrelated case of abuse against a former girlfriend. In that instance, he strangled the woman and burned “an intimate part” of her body with a hot curling iron, scarring her permanently.
Chavez’s attorney asked that his client be released until sentencing, claiming that Chavez had endured “difficulties” with other jail inmates. The judge denied the request.
The children’s mothers, Johnson and Cabrera, also each pled no contest to four counts of felony child abuse and one count of dissuading witnesses for failing to prevent the abuse and for discouraging their children from testifying.
All three defendants will be sentenced sometime next month. They remain in custody without bail at the Butte County Jail.
Ramsey commended the children for their bravery in reporting the abuse, despite tremendous pressure from Chavez and their mothers to remain quiet. He also thanked the investigators, many of whom are “hardened” law enforcement veterans, who still admitted that the case took a significant emotional “toll” on them.
It is unclear where and with whom the children are now living.
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