- October 12, 2024
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A 3-year-old boy was found dead in a retention pond behind an Ormond Beach apartment complex after being missing for about 8 hours on Sunday, April 23, Ormond Beach Police reported.
Officers arrested the boy's mother, 22-year-old Myra Santiago, on aggravated manslaughter and child neglect charges after she allegedly left her son, Aziryh Santiago, alone for four hours in her unit at San Marco Apartments in Ormond Beach.
According to a police report, the reporting officer spoke with a neighbor whose security cameras showed the toddler run past his door at 6:46 a.m. and then behind his apartment next to the retention pond a minute later. He was seen walking with a tablet before running directly towards the pond.
Santiago told police that she had left Aziryh with a neighbor around 10-11 p.m. the night before in order to go to the Daytona Beach boardwalk with a friend. She said she returned between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. and picked up her son, putting him to bed inside her apartment. Around 6 a.m., the boy came into her room and asked for his tablet, something she said happened regularly as the boy will then lay down in his room for a while with the device.
According to the report, Santiago woke up at 1:45 p.m. and noticed her son was not in the apartment. Police had arrived to the scene at 1:44 p.m. after receiving a call about a drowning. Once on the scene, officers and personnel from the Ormond Beach Fire Department tried to resuscitate the boy, but were unsuccessful.
Santiago told police that her son had escaped several times from the apartment and that she had previously found him on the stairs.
Through the course of the police investigation, OBPD discovered through a Department of Children and Families investigator that Santiago's claim that a neighbor had watched Aziryh the night before was false. The neighbor told DCF she had never watched the child, and confirmed her statements to OBPD. She also showed screenshots of Facebook messages between her and Santiago that showed Santiago asked her to tell police she had watched the toddler.
Santiago was arrested on Monday, April 24.
