Scumbag Carnies Chain Up and Starve Their Circus Performer Son

Scumbag Carnies Chain Up and Starve Their Circus Performer Son

Eduardo Luis Poo was born on November 28, 2006, in the small Floridian city of Arcadia. Right from the start, he had a beautiful, contagious smile and was sweet and loving towards everyone. Some of Eduardo’s favorite pastimes were playing video games, banging on his drum set, and jumping on the trampoline. He also loved horses, motorcycles, dogs, cooking scrambled eggs, fishing, and visiting the shoe store with his uncle.

Eduardo’s mother was Ora Esmeralda Garcia, who was born in September 1983. Eduardo was her first child, and in January 2010, she gave birth to his younger sister, Roxana. At the time of our story, Eduardo was a very kind, helpful 12-year-old boy who gave the warmest hugs.

Luis Eduardo Poo Jr. was born on December 23, 1986. He was 20 years old when his first child, Eduardo, was born. Luis and Ora tied the knot in the 2000s, but their marriage did not last long. In November 2015, Luis started dating Diana Medina Flores, who was born in 1998 and had one son born in 2014 from a previous marriage. The pair became engaged by New Year’s Eve, even though Luis was still married to Ora. The two finalized their divorce in early 2016, and Luis married Diana in April of that same year.

After their parents divorced, Eduardo and his sister Roxana lived with their mom and dad equally. However, one day, Luis picked the kids up and never brought them home. When Eduardo said goodbye to his mom that day, she promised him that she was not going to let Luis take him away permanently. The two pinkie-swore that if he did, she would come after him and bring him home. Ora took Luis to court in a lengthy custody battle but ended up losing full custody of Eduardo and Roxana because Ora had failed to attend a custody hearing.

Eduardo and Roxana lived with their father, stepmother, 5-year-old stepbrother, and an infant half-sibling in rural Myakka City, Florida. Diana loved her biological children but did not like either of her stepchildren and considered them to be a burden. In text messages, she referred to them as her “number one problem” and described herself as “just a maid that has to abide by being with a brood of kids that aren’t mine.” She also sent a text message, most likely about Eduardo, which said, “He’s the one who has to give in in attitude and behavior.”

The Poo family lived in an apartment unit directly behind a dairy farm. The apartment was only supposed to be rented out to farm workers without children, and the owner, Jerry Daon, is still unsure how the Poos were allowed to rent the property in the first place, as four kids lived there and neither Luis nor Diana worked at the farm. Eduardo and his sister attended Myakka City Elementary School until the summer of 2018. They attended an after-school club at the Myakka City Community Center, where a childcare provider, Jessica Nelson, expressed how Eduardo was “extremely popular and just a great all-around kid who would help anybody in need.” She also remembered that his parents seemed like nice, down-to-earth, hardworking people.

However, the couple’s neighbor, named Karen Graham, remembers them as the “neighbors from hell.” Luis would keep everyone awake at night screaming at his wife and kids in Spanish. The couple also left trash lying out, causing vermin problems in the neighborhood. They were too lazy to clean the garbage themselves, so they forced Eduardo to do it. Karen complained to him about it, and he went next door and started yelling at Luis for forcing his young son to pick up garbage instead of doing it himself. She also said she saw Eduardo eating some of the trash that he was picking up.

Karen also noted how Eduardo ran around wearing taped-up shoes. She felt sorry for the boy, so Karen asked for his shoe size and offered to buy him a new pair; however, the very next day, his parents bought him a brand-new pair. Karen and her husband would also try to sneak candy and bags of toys for Eduardo because he only had some juggling balls to play with. He was a talented juggler and would spend hours and hours in the driveway trying to impress his father, who didn’t care at all. The only time Karen saw Eduardo and Luis interact was when he was forcing him to move heavy circus-performing equipment on the porch and sweep the area.

For a long time, Karen believed Eduardo was an only child because the other three children rarely left the house. One day, her husband caught sight of Roxana as she went outside to fetch clothing from the washing line; he waved at her, and Luis later warned him to never interact with his daughters or even glance in their direction. Karen and her husband hardly ever spoke to Eduardo, who seemed afraid most of the time and was even scared to pet the couple’s dog without getting permission from his parents first. Despite this, Karen felt he considered them his friends, as he would smile whenever he saw them.

After her kids moved away, Ora tried to keep in contact with them, but when she called, Luis always made excuses or flat-out said the kids didn’t want to speak with her. According to Ora, her ex-husband also lied about her not paying child support and threw away any birthday and Christmas gifts she sent her kids in the trash. Ora started to fear her children were being mistreated and made a report to the Florida Department of Children and Families, but they never followed up on her concerns. She knew that Luis was a strict disciplinarian who believed in harsh punishment and felt in the back of her mind that something wasn’t right.

As many as five child neglect reports were made to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office between March 2017 and November 2018, all from different sources. The first report in March 2017 came from Ora, but when an investigation was launched, no evidence of neglect was ever found. Six months later, in September 2017, Eduardo’s grandmother, Dolores Poo, reported that her grandson had been hit several times on his head. Investigators went to the family’s apartment and interviewed everyone in the home, including Eduardo. They all stated he had accidentally hit his cheek on his knee while he was trying to do a flip on the trampoline. Investigators decided that the accusations were unfounded and that no crime had taken place. Two additional reports were made in November 2017 and February 2018 from anonymous sources. The last report was filed in November 2018 by Eduardo’s school district, who said their student had a bruise on his face. When investigators interviewed Luis and Diana, they claimed Eduardo was learning to juggle and one of the balls had hit him in the face. The report was closed, and the documents concluded, “This is a circus performer family. Investigation shows the child obtained the bruise during juggling practice. Case is unfounded.”

On December 3, 2018, investigators visited Eduardo at home one last time. They questioned him about his home life and the relationship he had with his father and stepmother. He denied ever being mistreated, and investigators noted he seemed happy and healthy; they even took a photo of him smiling for the camera. He looked happy, but noticeably thinner. Two days later, Luis pulled Eduardo and Roxana out of Myakka City Elementary School, telling the school district he would be homeschooling them from now on. The family then moved out of state without telling Ora, who hadn’t seen her children since Thanksgiving 2017. She remembers that day vividly, as her son looked a lot thinner than before. When she asked why he had lost so much weight, he explained that he had only been eating cereal for dinner. After his school raised concerns about his weight, Ora also noticed that Eduardo was unusually quiet and seemed afraid of talking.

Now, Karen Graham, the Poos’ Myakka City neighbor, remembers seeing Luis and Diana carrying leather restraints to the back of their car the day of the move. Diana was also selling the family’s refrigerator and giving away all the food in the home, which Karen thought was strange. She got a glimpse inside their apartment and recalled how they had a big white cupboard in the kitchen with a lock on it; she thought that was very strange but didn’t think anything of it at the time. Before the family moved away, Karen sat down with Eduardo, and they had a private conversation. She remembers telling him that he could be anything he wanted to be in life and encouraged him to try hard at school so he could one day escape his current situation.

For at least one month, the Poo family traveled from motel to motel in Monroe County, Indiana, earning money by distributing flyers for an advertising company contracted by the traveling circus, Circa Italia’s Big Top Goldwater Circus. The circus was to perform eight shows in Bloomington’s College Mall parking lot in June 2019. Although it was Luis and Diana’s job to distribute the flyers, they forced their kids into helping them. However, Eduardo was never spotted handing out the flyers, which seemed unusual considering that Luis had a history of forcing his son to work. While the rest of the family were working, Eduardo was kept shackled in the hotel bathtub, with Luis monitoring him on a webcam to ensure he did not escape.

Luis and Diana chained Eduardo in the bathroom every single day and every single night. In addition to forcing Eduardo to live out his days in the cold, hard bathtub, Luis added to the cruelty by chaining Eduardo’s ankles and fastening the chain to the shower handrail. This meant his ankles were constantly elevated; he couldn’t even stand. Luis also deprived Eduardo of food and water and shocked him with an electronic dog training collar almost every day. When Eduardo was given food, it was only spoiled leftovers or one-half of a sandwich. He was also forced to eat cat food and a dog bone at one point. While Eduardo was being treated worse than an animal, the rest of the family ate McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A and slept in comfortable beds.

On top of confining, starving, and neglecting Eduardo, Luis and Diana savagely beat him in various ways. He was beaten with a metal bat regularly, and a broken toothbrush was once forced down his throat. Sometimes, Luis would even take a staple gun and shoot staples into Eduardo’s feet. Eduardo was also emotionally neglected, and they turned him into the family scapegoat. The other children did not acknowledge his existence most of the time, and his 5-year-old stepbrother drew a family portrait without Eduardo in it because “he was bad and not part of the family.”

As June 2019 was approaching, the neglect reached its peak. On May 20, the family checked into the Economy Inn on Bloomington’s south side in Monroe County. It would be the last hotel Eduardo would ever stay at. Every day and night, he lay shackled in the bathroom, dreaming of running away with the circus. One of the last things Eduardo said to his sister was that he just wanted to juggle and be free. On May 23, Luis and Diana punched, slapped, and kicked Eduardo while the other children listened from the next room. After the beating, they stripped him naked and left him whimpering in the cold water from the shower pouring down on him. Later that day, Eduardo became incoherent and was too weak to feed himself. Luis and Diana tried to “heal” him with Ensure and Pedialyte; they also gave him protein bars, and when he didn’t eat them, they hit him again.

In the early hours of Friday, May 24, Diana went back into the bathroom and found her shackled stepson not moving; he was cold to the touch. At 2:52 a.m., Luis got into his van and drove Eduardo to the IU Health Bloomington Hospital in Bloomington, Indiana. Eduardo was completely unresponsive, not breathing, and he didn’t have a pulse. Luis rushed Eduardo to the emergency room, saying his son had choked in his sleep. Staff noted how Luis’s shirt was stained with vomit. A doctor made several resuscitation attempts, but sadly, Eduardo was pronounced dead at 3:05 a.m., just 13 minutes after arriving at the hospital.

Eduardo’s autopsy was performed by Monroe County Coroner Joanie Shields. The report noted he was severely malnourished and severely dehydrated at the time of his death. He had lost 40 to 50% of his body weight and had a body mass index less than the third percentile of children his age. The fat under Eduardo’s skin had been depleted, and his eyes were sunk into their sockets; his ribs and bones were protruding outward. Eduardo’s organs also showed signs of shrinkage, suggesting that his body had cannibalized itself out of starvation, and the coroner opened his stomach—all she could find was hair inside.

The autopsy further revealed that Eduardo had severe blunt-force injuries all over his body. These included bruises, scrapes, and lacerations on his head, neck, back, chest, shoulders, arms, and legs. The coroner wrote that the injuries were in an indiscriminate pattern and seemed to have been calibrated to inflict pain and suffering. The cause of death was ultimately ruled a homicide caused by complications of severe malnutrition, dehydration, and soft-tissue injuries.

A CA investigation was quickly launched thereafter. Investigators from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office were called to the Bloomington Hospital, and the first officer to arrive, Officer Elliot Jordan, got there at 3:33 a.m. Now, the coroner informed him that Eduardo was severely emaciated, weighing only 50 to 55 lbs with 0% body fat. This is a 12-year-old boy. Officer Jordan found Luis in the examination room, sitting in a chair next to the bed and facing the door. The officer entered the room and said, “Tell me what happened, bub.”

Luis explained that he had been sleeping but was awakened by a choking sound. He went to check on his son and found him gagging, so he picked him up and drove to the emergency room. Officer Jordan asked Luis if Eduardo had any health problems. He said his wife told him that Eduardo had a little bit of a headache about five days ago, that it went away, and today he fell in the shower. Apart from that incident, Luis claimed his son was perfectly fine all day and ate all his food.

Two more officers had arrived at this point. Deputy Chitwood read Luis his Miranda rights, and Sergeant Hail asked him to sign a consent form so police could search his motel room and van. Luis signed the form without even glancing at the fine print. He then used his cell phone to warn Diana that police were coming to search the room. The detectives left Luis’s room at 3:54 a.m. with the keys to search his van. Another officer, Detective Rushing, then sat down with Luis and asked him what happened. Luis repeated the same story, but there were some obvious inconsistencies in it. When Luis spoke with Officer Jordan, he claimed Eduardo banged his head in the shower and so he gave him ibuprofen. Now he was saying his son was bleeding from the shower injury and he gave him an aspirin.

Luis was also questioned about how he disciplined his son. He said that Eduardo acted out a lot and admitted to spanking him with a belt, a flip-flop, and his bare hands whenever he misbehaved. Luis also told the officer that the last time he spanked his son was three days prior; Eduardo had hit his sister and was spanked on his legs five times with a belt as punishment. Detective Rushing asked Luis if he ever withheld food from his son, and Luis denied ever withholding food and said he could not explain Eduardo’s emaciated state. Luis claimed his son was a healthy child who ate regularly and that the day before he arrived at the hospital, he was completely fine and had been running around and jumping on the trampoline like any normal healthy child would.

When the questions were over, Luis left the room to go and view his dead son’s body in the hospital morgue. Meanwhile, investigators began searching the Economy Inn motel room where the Poo family was staying. They found wrist and ankle restraints, chains, padlocks, and an electronic dog shock collar hidden beneath the hotel bed. They also discovered a padlock case that contained all of the food in the room. When Diana was confronted about the items, she admitted that Luis occasionally kept Eduardo restrained in the bathroom and monitored him with the surveillance camera while they went to work. She also said he would sometimes shock Eduardo with the dog training collar.

Diana was taken to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office to be interviewed. Police examined her cell phone and Google Drive accounts and found several images of Eduardo confined in various bathrooms on five different days between April 25 and May 23, 2019. Nearly all of the images showed him inside a bathtub, chained at the ankles, and lying shirtless in a fetal position. He was seen wearing the dog shock collar in some of the photos. The most recent photo, taken the day before Eduardo died, showed him hunched over in a shower, weak and frail with protruding bones.

Further digging uncovered disturbing text messages Diana had sent her husband. One was written in Spanish and was translated to “Eduardo was almost out of the chains.” Detectives also discovered a selfie Luis took with his shackled son, and a video of the other children coming and going in the bathroom, paying no attention to Eduardo. Diana’s phone also contained a video showing Luis standing by the bathroom door with his phone in his hand; she could be heard telling Luis to shock Eduardo with the dog collar so that “he sees that you’re not just all talk.” The couple controlled the dog collar with their phones. Another recording showed Eduardo’s sister going into the bathroom and staring at him, and then walking back out.

At 5:52 a.m., Luis was transported from the Bloomington Hospital to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in a police vehicle and locked in an interview room. Diana was already there, getting interviewed in another room. Luis gave the detectives permission to examine his cell phone. Numerous incriminating text messages were found on the phone. One message from Diana read, “Eduardo almost took off the chains.” She sent another text 20 minutes later saying that she did not trust him but would keep watching. A month before Eduardo’s death, Luis sent a text message to Diana saying, “This is [expletive].” The couple also exchanged messages discussing the marks left on Eduardo’s wrists and ankles from the chains. When asked why he kept Eduardo chained in the bathroom, Luis claimed he only did it to prevent his son from wandering around the motel. He also said the webcam found in the bathroom was used to monitor the children in the shower. That is [expletive] disgusting. The detective then asked about the marks found on Eduardo’s wrists and ankles. At that point, Luis asked for a lawyer and stopped talking.

Both Luis and Diana were formally arrested at around 5:00 p.m. on May 24, 2019. The couple were held in segregation at the Monroe County Jail with $500,000 bail each. They were both charged with murder, neglect of a dependent, neglect of a dependent resulting in death, criminal confinement, and battery resulting in injury to a child younger than 14. After Luis and Diana were arrested, the three other kids, who appeared healthy, were placed with child services. Roxana was finally reunited with her mother, Ora, after one month. The same day of the couple’s arrest, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office held a press conference announcing details of Eduardo’s death and the arrest of his father and stepmother. Toward the end of the press conference, the speaker admitted that in 30 years of police work, he had never seen a case like Eduardo Poo’s in his life. He compared the 12-year-old’s death to “a fan gradually coming to a slow, painful, merciful halt” and said he feels sorry for Eduardo’s siblings.

Diana pleaded guilty to murder in July 2021. Her trial took place earlier than intended at her own request. She accepted a plea agreement on May 26, 2021, which dropped the charges of neglect of a dependent, neglect of a dependent resulting in death, criminal confinement, and battery resulting in injury to a child younger than 14. The agreement also ensured she would have a chance of parole one day. Diana’s attorney claimed she had been sexually assaulted as a child; in her prior and current marriages, when she was 9 years old, she was assaulted by a man in his mid-20s who was employed by the circus in Mexico. Diana also claimed she was assaulted by her employers when she was 16 and 22 years old. Additionally, she claims to have been sexually, physically, and emotionally mistreated by her husband, Luis. The attorney argued there was a power dynamic in Luis and Diana’s marriage and that every decision made regarding Eduardo was Luis’s decision. The attorney claimed that Diana was too scared to report Luis to the police in case she would be sent back to Mexico and separated from her two children.

Eduardo’s case attracted significant media coverage, and Diana’s attorney believed it made it harder for her to get a fair trial. He even requested funds to purchase clothing for Diana to wear during the trial as opposed to the green jail jumpsuit, hoping it would reduce bias from the jury. At the end of July 2021, Diana was sentenced to 65 years in prison, the maximum sentence for murder in Indiana. She appealed her sentence the following year, claiming she was a victim of battered spouse syndrome and should therefore have been given a lesser sentence. The appeal was denied by the courts in July 2022. Diana is currently imprisoned at the Rockville Correctional Facility.

Luis’s two defense attorneys, Isabella Bravo and Kyle Dugger, also felt the news coverage of Eduardo’s case was too much, and they even filed a change of venue request to try to avoid the media’s glare. The request stated that the news reports were “saturating Monroe County with coverage while also reaching a wide audience in South Central Indiana,” and that Luis would never receive a fair trial because the jurors would be exposed to prejudicial information from the media. The request listed hate comments directed at Luis, including “SOB should starve” and “public torture and hanging for both of them.” A letter was also recorded on Luis’s court file from a man in Layton, Utah, advocating for Luis and Diana to receive the death penalty. The letter read, “People that are capable of this level of cruelty, this degree of torture… I would request if this case is eligible for the death penalty that these people get it.” It should be noted that the prosecution never had plans to pursue the death penalty for either Luis or Diana. The death penalty is very rare in Indiana, and the state has only executed 20 people since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.

Luis appeared in court for murder in June 2022. He changed his plea to guilty earlier that month after being offered a plea agreement that dropped his additional charges, as well as a petition from the prosecution seeking life in prison without the possibility of parole. During the trial, Luis called Eduardo’s death “terrible and heartbreaking.” His defense team argued that Diana had been the instigator and therefore Luis was not entirely responsible for Eduardo’s death. A psychology expert was also brought in to testify; they claimed that Luis suffered an overwhelming number of stressors in his life, and those stressors resulted in what they called “involuntary psychological defense mechanisms” that stopped Luis from standing up to Diana when she mistreated his son. This narrative was thankfully rejected by the court. At one point during the trial, Monroe Circuit Judge Christine Tally-Hyman held up an 8×10 inch picture of Eduardo—a happy, smiling kid wearing a Disney World t-shirt. Then she displayed another photo taken a few years later; it showed him emaciated, near death, chained up in a motel room bathtub. As she displayed the image to the courtroom, she made direct eye contact with Luis and told him, “He went from this to this while he was in your care.” On October 6, 2022, Luis was sentenced to 65 years in prison, the maximum sentence for murder in Indiana. He is currently incarcerated at the Monroe County Jail.

Eduardo’s loved ones were absolutely devastated by his death. When police arrived at Ora’s door to break the news to her, she believed they were there to tell her she was getting custody of her kids. She felt relieved that her son had spoken out and someone finally listened. When Ora found out that her son actually died and was never coming home, she started screaming, and her husband had to hold her down. Ora was beside herself, understandably, thinking back on the report she made to authorities telling them her son was in danger; they never listened to her, and now her beloved son was dead. In an interview just days after her son’s passing, Ora sat down at a park bench with WTHR reporter Alan Carter. Ora expressed how painful it was for her to see photos and videos of Eduardo because she was still struggling to come to terms with his death. With a heavy heart, she explained how she wanted nothing more than to see her precious son again so she could kiss him and tell him that she was sorry for not doing enough. Ora tries to remember her son as the sweet boy she knew who was always laughing and always smiling, rather than a victim of heinous child neglect. The reason why Eduardo was put through months of evil torture is still a mystery to Ora, who says she will never understand how Luis could do this to his own child, or how her son could have possibly done anything to make Luis or Diana treat him the way they did.

At the end of the interview, Ora broke down in tears discussing Eduardo’s upcoming 13th birthday, as it would have been the day he was old enough to legally decide which parent he wanted to live with. Had Eduardo lived to the end of the year, he would have been reunited with his mother and finally free from his neglectful father and stepmother. One month after Eduardo’s passing, Ora recorded a heartbreaking message on social media. It read: “It took me a while to do this video because for me it’s not easy. Today is exactly a month that my son was ripped away from his life. Today is exactly a month where my son wasn’t allowed to complete his life the way he was supposed to. I just wanted to let my son know that it’s been a long trip for me all these years. The tears that I cry wanting to have you by my side does not compare from the tears dropping now that I know I won’t have you. It’s just awful, it’s just awful. I hope from the bottom of my heart that no one ever passes for something like this. The pain, the pain… you can’t describe the pain. When my mom passed away to me, I thought it was the worst pain you could ever feel, but it’s not. Losing your son is the worst pain that can be. Knowing the way he passed away, the horrible way he passed away. They say when the time goes by you start feeling a little better, but it’s not helping me; that’s not working for me. The time goes by and the pain is even worse because I become more and more in the reality that my son is not here. The only thing keeping me up is my daughter because I have to be strong for her. I have to prove to Indiana State that I’m okay, and I will be beside her to raise her the right way after she’s been seeing so many bad things. But I can’t, I can’t be this way because only a mother knows how much we love our children, how much we want to take care of them, and I try to take care of my kids and those monsters take them away from me the wrong way, they take them away from me. I just wanted to tell my son that it was really hard for me to make this video, but I just wanted to tell him: I love you baby, and I always did love you like a crazy woman. I loved you, Poppy. I tried, and I didn’t stop. Even this year we went to court twice. I didn’t stop trying, and I know you know that. You know that Mommy was always trying to be with you, Mommy was always trying to get you back to me. I’m sorry if you weren’t strong enough to hold yourself. I love you, I know you’re with God right now, and I know we’re going to see each other again—that’s the only comfort I have on my heart right now. That we will see each other again in the eternity life, we’re going to be together for eternity and there’s not going to be no one to separate us, no one, nothing. And we’re going to be together for the eternity, Poppy. Mommy loves you, I’m sorry. I know you did this to save your sister, because you were a savior, just like your name means. The meaning of your name is ‘Savior,’ and that’s what you are. Love you, Poppy.”

On what would have been Eduardo’s 13th birthday, Ora posted the following: “November 28 is the day my life changed completely. It was the day Eduardo was born. It was the day I found my first love. He was going to be 13 years old, the age I was waiting so much for so I could take him to court and save his life. On the 28th of this year, it will be Thanksgiving, but it’s still going to be the hardest Thanksgiving I will ever see. But I’m still making the dinner and celebrating his birthday at the same time because he deserves it. They didn’t celebrate his birthday for four years. At least after he passed away, Mommy will do his birthday so he can see it in heaven, be happy that his birthday finally was celebrated. I love you baby, I can’t wait to see you again my love, I can’t wait.”

It didn’t take long before people started demanding answers from the authorities who had failed to protect Eduardo. Randy Warren, a public information officer for the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, told the media their investigators made very thorough checks on Eduardo’s home life and were, at the time, very confident that there were no signs of neglect during their investigations, despite finding bruises on Eduardo more than once and seeing him grow visibly thinner as time went by. A spokesman for Circa Italia also released a statement after Eduardo’s death; they called his passing a “terrible tragedy” and affirmed that their company had no direct connection to either Luis or Diana. They also promised to do whatever they could to assist in the investigation into Eduardo’s death.

Three days after Eduardo’s death, Ora set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for his funeral, for her to attend the court trials, and to regain custody of her daughter. Sadly, not even half of the $10,000 target was raised in donations, so Ora was unable to give her son the sendoff that he deserved. While there were no funeral services for Eduardo, a vigil was held in his memory at 5:00 p.m. on June 2, 2019. Dozens of mourners came together at the Myakka Family Worship Center on Singletary Road to remember the 12-year-old. Attendees tried their hardest to focus on the good times in Eduardo’s life rather than his tragic end. The pastor who led the vigil, Lynn Howell, believes Eduardo’s death was for a greater purpose and told the mourners, “If Eduardo lived for any reason, he lived for this: to bring awareness to a system that is broken.” More than 600,000 children are neglected in the U.S. each year, and thousands die every year as a result. Eduardo’s mother hopes this case will inspire change in how authorities investigate reports of mistreatment and wants to encourage anyone who sees a child being mistreated to speak out. The details of Eduardo’s resting place have been kept private, so we don’t know if Eduardo was buried or cremated, but we do know that he will be deeply and forever missed by everyone who loved him.