Elisa Izquierdo
Encyclopedia : E : EL : ELI : Elisa Izquierdo
Elisa Izquierdo (February 11, 1989 - November 22, 1995) was a 6-year old girl who became a symbol of child abuse in the mid-1990s after being beaten to death by her mother Awilda Lopez, a New York City drug addict, in 1995. Her story first made citywide and then national headlines when it became clear that New York City's Child Welfare System (now the Administration for Children's Services) missed many opportunities to intervene in her family and to so save her life, thus bringing the CWA (ACS) under critical speculation. In the media, Elisa was frequently likened to a modern day "Cinderella" because she had been under the protection of a loving father, Gustavo Izquierdo, until his death from cancer on May 26, 1994 and had met the prince of Greece through her school, before she came into her mother's custody. Her life story became the subject of much speculation from New York based tabloid newspapers such as The Daily News and The New York Post to the front cover of Time Magazine. Her biography was even featured on an August 1996 episode of Dateline NBC. Her funeral drew an estimated 300 mourners. During the summer of 1996, Awilda Lopez was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for her killing. Lopez' common law husband Carlos was likewise charged and sentenced for his part in her death.
See also
References
- [The murder of Elisa Izquierdo spurred a barrage of stories, and improvements at the agency charged with protecting kids -- until the press grew weary of all that misery.]
- [Open Justice: Little girl's murder brought New York's juvenile court proceedings into the light.]
- Peyser, Mark and Carla Powell. "The Death of Little Elisa." Newsweek. December 11, 1995
- Van Biema, David. "Abandoned to Her Fate: Neighbors, Teachers and the Authorities All Knew Elisa Izquierdo Was Being Abused, But Somehow Nobody Managed To Stop It." Time Magazine. December 11, 1995.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.