W.V. mom takes plea deal in girl's beating

A West Valley woman with a history of child abuse has pleaded guilty to reduced charges in a near-fatal beating of her 7-year-old daughter.

Emperatriz Meza Reyna, 22, originally faced attempted murder and other charges. As part of a plea bargain, Reyna entered guilty pleas to inflicting serious physical injury on a child intentionally, a second-degree felony, and child abuse, a third-degree felony.

She is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 11.

The woman took her daughter to Pioneer Valley Hospital on July 22 and, while medical staffers were conducting a CT scan, the child went into cardiac arrest. She was taken by helicopter to Primary Children's Medical Center.

Doctors there found a severe brain injury they said could only have occurred if the child had endured "a massive blow or blows" to the head or had her head slammed into something hard, according to court documents. One doctor said the girl's injuries could have killed her and are quite likely to cause permanent brain damage.

The girl also had bruises on her arms, legs, left ankle and buttocks as well as a bite mark on her upper abdomen that appeared to have come from adult human teeth, according to prosecutors. The child also had a broken clavicle that was healing, which indicated a prior injury.

In a previous abuse case, the girl, who was 5 at the time, had been taken from Reyna's custody in January 2008 after doctors found the child had suffered a serious head injury and multiple bruises. Reyna was convicted in September 2008 of two counts of third-degree felony child abuse, court documents state.

The Division of Child and Family Services, which had taken the girl and her half-siblings out of the home, returned the girl to Reyna on April 30, 2009.

During the investigation of that case, Reyna told police that she hits, bites and chokes the girl, has covered the child's mouth and nose so she cannot breathe for up to two minutes at a time, and once strangled the child so forcefully that the girl wet herself.

Reyna told law enforcement officials that she was glad she had been arrested in the 2008 case "because she was afraid she may kill her daughter," court documents say.

e-mail: lindat@desnews.com