OAKLAND, CA - JUNE 13: Contra Costa County Sheriff's deputies and other law enforcement agencies detained a man on Greenly Drive and Field Street in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, June 13, 2020. He was taken away by ambulance. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
RODEO — Though the young girl’s cause of death remains officially a mystery, prosecutors have formally charged the father and stepmother of 11-year-old Annai Diaz with murdering her, on top of pre-existing charges of torture, child abuse, and mayhem, court records show.
Rene Diaz, and his wife, Crystal Diaz, were arrested after the girl’s March 2021 death and charged with extreme, horrific abuse that authorities allege started as early as October 2020. But for more than a year, Annai’s actual death remained under investigation, while the coroner’s office searched for an explanation and shifted its theory, changing the official cause from “homicide” to “undetermined,” according to court records.
Prosecutors filed the murder charge late last year, but brought it before a judge last month in a preliminary hearing for the couple, where police testified about the alleged torture and abuse. Rene and Crystal Diaz are next due in court in August, where a pathologist is set to testify about the investigation into Annai’s death, and a judge will determine whether to make the charge stick.
The investigation into Rene and Crystal Diaz started March 23, when the couple called 9-1-1 to report that Annai had gone unresponsive and appeared to be in medical distress. They told authorities they believed she’d ingested some kind of toxic substance and needed medical attention. But emergency responders quickly noticed obvious signs of prolonged abuse; one patterned injury to her upper right arm, for instance, turned out to be a third degree burn, possibly caused by a meat fork the couple allegedly burned her with, according to Annai’s autopsy report.
The other abuse included beating Annai, forcing her to take cold showers, and handcuffing her to their bed, sometimes making her sleep there without a blanket during winter months, authorities allege. The allegedly told police that some of the abuse was punishment after they accused her of stealing depressing medication or drinking cleaning fluid from the kitchen.
But despite the abuse, there was no clearcut cause of death for a forensic pathologist to point to.
Dr. Arnold Josselson, who conducted Annai’s autopsy seized on one fact from Rene Diaz’s police interview — that he allegedly gave Annai a plastic bag to assist with her breathing when she became unresponsive that night. With that in mind, Josselson ruled Annai’s death was a homicide, but later changed that determination.
The autopsy report says that “upon further review” Josselson noted that there was a large buildup of fluid around Annai’s heart that “indicates possible heart failure” caused by trauma. But he also noted that the human body can often tolerate slow buildups of such fluid, so “while the cause of death may be heart failure, it may not be the cause.” He also couldn’t completely rule out smothering, and said that while her death would be ruled undetermined, “the circumstances are suspicious.”
Neither Rene nor Crystal Diaz’s attorneys responded to a request for comment.
Originally published at Nate Gartrell