Joe Yates
Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing.
A woman has been arrested and charged following the alleged abuse of her boyfriend's children, with claims that she smothered them with pillows.
Katrina Carrillo, of Miami, Florida, has been accused of pinning a nine-year-old boy to the ground and beating him before attempting to smother him with a blanket and a pillow.
The 25-year-old's arrest came after the quick-thinking schoolboy wrote a desperate message on a pink Post-it note that was discovered in March and subsequently handed to the Florida Department of Children and Families.
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The agency in turn alerted the police, who met with cops on Wednesday afternoon (April 23) at the Miami Police Department’s headquarters Downtown, where she was arrested just before 4.30pm Eastern Time, despite denying all charges.
That night, prosecutors charged her with child abuse, placed a $5,000 bond on her, and booked her into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center - which is located by Miami International Airport.
The Post-it note in question that led to Carrillo being cuffed had three words written on it. These were: "Pleas help us."
However, it is not yet known exactly where the Post-it note was left and who read it to alert the authorities, but the young boy and his brother have since been taken away from the accused.
It was during a police interview that the nine-year-old claimed that he was pinned down and beaten and that Carrillo tried to smother him - telling the forensic interviewer that he felt like he was 'not breathing' during the traumatic ordeal.
The police report, that has been seen by Local 10, included a line that read: "She disciplines her children and not her boyfriend's."
Carrillo posted bail the same night, forking out $5,000 to do so, and was subsequently released.
During a court appearance the following day, Carrillo was ordered to stay away from her boyfriend's children, and is expected back in court to face her charges.
When exactly that will be has not yet been made public.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues or want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, the Childhelp USA National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453) operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and receives calls from throughout the United States, Canada, US Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico.