A woman who was a 19-year-old grocery store clerk in 1996 when authorities allege she picked up her toddler who was refusing to go to bed and threw her into a wall, killing the little girl in Fort Worth, was arrested Saturday in Mexico 26 years after she fled while under indictment on capital murder.
Maria Narez, now 48, has been a fugitive since she was indicted in 1999, according to the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.
Narez told police that she was depressed and stressed when she told Kasandra White that it was time for bed. Narez said she got mad when the 3-year-old refused.
“It angered her. She picked the baby up by the chest under her arms, threw her into a wall, and her head struck the door edge,” Fort Worth Police Department Sgt. Fred Pendergraf told the Star-Telegram in 1996.
Kasandra started crying said ‘It hurts,’ and went to bed,” Pendergraf said.
Narez was jailed on Nov. 13, 1996, after taking Kasandra to a hospital when the child lost consciousness a day after she was injured in an apartment in the 2500 block of Park Hill Drive, police said. Kasandra died three days later.
An autopsy showed that Kasandra’s death was caused by blunt force trauma to the head.
Narez initially told hospital employees that Kasandra had fallen off a bicycle but later told staff members and a detective that she had hurt her child, Pendergraf said.