Coachella mom pleads guilty to murder in death of five-year-old son

INDIO, Calif. (KESQ) - A Coachella woman who engaged in the ongoing abuse of her 5-year-old son, ultimately killing the boy, pleaded guilty today to first-degree murder and other charges.  

Vanessa Cervantes Rangel, 41, admitted the murder count, as well as assault on a child resulting in death, torture and four misdemeanor counts of child abuse, during a pretrial hearing Friday before Riverside County Superior Court Judge Kristi Hester at the Larson Justice Center in Indio.

Court minutes did not reflect whether the plea was directly to the judge, or negotiated ahead of time with the District Attorney's Office. A sentencing date also was not immediately announced.

Rangel is being held without bail at the Robert Presley Jail.   

Her mother, 59-year-old Hilaria Cervantes Rangel, and sister, 44-year-old Miriam Silva, are each charged with first-degree degree murder, and Hilaria Rangel is additionally charged with four counts of child abuse, though Silva is only charged with one count.

They're both free on $75,000 bonds and are slated to go on trial beginning Jan. 15.

Along with Vanessa Rangel's youngest son, prosecutors said her other children were also abused by her. Their names weren't disclosed, but at the time of her arrest in 2022, they were identified as a 13-year-old girl, a 6 year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy.  

During a November 2022 preliminary hearing, evidence was presented showing the 5-year-old with lesions up and down his body, a split lip, a bump on his head and about 1.5 inches of skin missing on his right arm.   

Sheriff's investigator Ruben Martinez testified that when he interviewed the surviving children, they confirmed their mother often beat the boy and would kick him so hard that he'd fall.

The kids also recalled how their grandmother would often treat the boy's wounds, change his diaper, carry him and wipe his tears away "so that his mother wouldn't see that he was crying,'' Martinez said.

Another detective, Martin Alfaro, testified that Silva became the child's legal guardian, as well as guardian to one of his siblings, in 2019, while the grandmother became guardian of the other children. He said Vanessa Rangel lost custody when county Child Protective Services agents opened an investigation. However, she still had visitation access.  

Defense attorneys for Silva and her mother argued during the hearing that the women took no active part in the abuse and weren't liable for murder in connection with the case, but the prosecution countered that Hilaria Rangel was giving medical aid "so that the abuse she knows is coming can continue to be perpetrated by Vanessa,'' and that Silva had a "legal-binding duty to care
and committed this homicide by omission."  

On the night of Sept. 8, 2022, deputies were called to Vanessa Rangel's home in the 50400 block of South Kenmore Street to investigate reports of a minor in medical distress.

Sheriff's officials said that when deputies arrived, they found the 5-year-old unconscious and gravely injured. He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics minutes later.  

Detectives arrested Vanessa Rangel five days afterward, and her mother and Silva were taken into custody one day after that.   

Vanessa Rangel had no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County, nor do her sister and mother.