Elizabeth Archibeque reads a statement during her sentencing hearing in Coconino County’s District 1 Courtroom Thursday, July 27, 2023. Archibeque, who pleaded guilty to murder in the starvation death of her 6-year-old son, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after witnesses described the horrors of the tiny closet that reeked of urine where he and his young brother were kept and denied food; she also appears in an undated mugshot, inset on the left. (Rachel Gibbons/Arizona Daily Sun via AP; Flagstaff Police Department)
An Arizona mother who intentionally starved her 6-year-old son as a form of punishment, eventually and slowly causing him to die, will spend the rest of her life in prison, a judge ruled on Thursday.
Elizabeth Archibeque-Martinez, 29, reached a deal with prosecutors earlier this year and pleaded guilty to one count each of murder in the first degree and child abuse, for the March 2, 2020, death of Deshaun Martinez. One count of child abuse was dismissed for the plea. Her defense attorney had also hoped for the possibility of parole.
Coconino Superior Court Judge Ted Reed decided that was not in the offing, according to a courtroom report by The Associated Press.
The judge reportedly remarked that the defendant had expressed some genuine measure of remorse, but found it simply not enough, calling the torture of her son “heinous, cruel and depraved behavior” that warranted imprisonment for “the rest of your natural life.”
Archibeque, for her part, reportedly said she blamed herself and would accept her sentence – whatever the sentence was.
“A huge part of me died along with my beautiful child,” she told the court. “Not a day goes by that I do not grieve … I am so sorry.”
The condemned woman also reportedly said her husband and mother-in-law inflicted mental and emotional abuse on her, leaving her feeling “powerless” to change the domestic situation.
According to Archibeque’s public defender, Christine Brown, her client had been addicted to methamphetamine since she was born.
The tiny, lifeless body of Deshaun Martinez was discovered at the Martinez residence in Flagstaff, roughly two hours north of Phoenix. An autopsy by the Coconino County Medical Examiner’s Office revealed that the boy died of starvation and that he weighed all of 18 pounds at the time of his death, Phoenix-based CBS affiliate KPHO reported. The autopsy showed the boy had a “skeletal appearance” because he had almost no fat on his body.
“I have never seen something so horrific in all my life,” Flagstaff Police Detective Melissa Seay testified during the sentencing hearing. “[He] was just bones.”
“His face was completely sunken in,” she continued. “It was just like a skeleton.”
Deshaun Martinez’s body was also covered in cuts and scrapes when he was found.
On the day the boy died, his grandmother, Ann Marie Martinez, 50, called police because she thought her grandson was dead.
She was right. And the boy’s older brother, 7 years old at the time, barely escaped death: he was hospitalized for severe malnutrition.
“His bones were protruding from his back,” Seay said of the older brother. “I could see his ribs.”
The boys’ grandmother and their father, Anthony Jose Archibeque-Martinez, 23, were also arrested on one count each of felony homicide in the first degree and two counts each of child abuse.
Ann Martinez is next slated to appear in court on Sept. 18, her trial is currently scheduled for January 2024; Anthony Martinez recently had his trial date reset and it has not been rescheduled.
At first, the boy’s parents allegedly told the Flagstaff Police Department that Deshaun Martinez’s extremely low weight was due to the result of a chronic medical condition and because he had ingested caffeine or weight loss pills, The Associated Press reported. Over time, however, investigators were able to suss out an extreme regime of punishment that had been in force at the Martinez home.
The boy’s parents later admitted they kept the deceased child, as well as his older brother, locked up in a closet for some 16 hours per day and gave them very little to eat, police said. That method of “discipline” had been occurring for “about a month,” the parents allegedly admitted to police; it was meted out in order to punish the boys for sneaking out of their beds at night and eating food.
Two other siblings – girls aged 2 and 4 – were found, healthy, in the apartment. The surviving children have been living in foster care.
The woman who took in the children also testified on Thursday, saying the boy was “so traumatized about food and eating” that he would “ask every five minutes” when he would next be able to eat.
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Elizabeth Archibeque-Martinez gets life for killing her son