Sirita Sotelo

Sirita Jimmina Sotelo

February 12 2000 - January 21 2005

Age: 4 years old 

Sirita was born on February 12, 2000 to John Ewell and Patricia Sotelo in Washington, USA. Sirita, affectionately called "Boo-Boo" was described as a bright, beautiful, energetic, silly, and incredibly sweet little girl, with a heartwarming smile. She loved the color pink, Hello Kitty, stuffed animals, princesses, fairies, singing, dancing, listening to music, getting her hair done, drinking root beer floats, climbing, watching figure skating on TV, helping out in the kitchen, playing outside, dressing up, looking at the stars, and riding her bike.

Sirita was born with cocaine in her system and the result of an extramarital affair. Sirita's mother was not able to overcome her drug use and she also had psychological problems.

On May 15 2003, based on the the amount of time that Sirita had been in the care of the state, the failed attempts to place her back with her mother and the fact that her father had not been in her life at all, the state filed papers to try to terminate the parental rights of her mother, Patricia Sotelo.

On November 21 2003, Sirita went to live with her father, stepmother and four other children. Sirita seemed to be having trouble adjusting to living in her knew home. During a visit on December 8 2004, they foster parents told a Catholic Community Services worker that Sirita and their youngest child would fight a lot.  The department determined that Sirita was in a good place and custody was granted to John and Heather. On January 22 2005, CPS would realize that they had made a big mistake.

That night, Police called CPS to report a suspicious death of a child. According to reports, Heather Ewell had called poison control stating that Sirita had gotten sick after she ate a glue stick solvent of some kind. Later in the evening she had checked on her and she was dead. Nothing was found in her system that backed up the glue gun story. She would later change her story and say that Sirita had fallen backwards and hit her head. That story was a lie.

Authorities were called to the home and noticed that Sirita seemed to be malnourished and pale. A medical examiner determined that her death was caused by blows to her head which had caused her skull to fracture and she also had a severed liver. Heather would later admit that she wasn't able to handle the fits that Sirita had been throwing so she had put her into a cold shower and beat her after she had wet her pants. Heather Ewell was sentenced to 8 years in prison. She was released in 2013.

Rest in peace Sirita.