{"id":116629,"date":"2026-01-09T06:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/116629\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T06:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:57:12","slug":"community-mourns-loss-of-3-year-old-dawn-villarreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/116629\/","title":{"rendered":"Community mourns loss of 3-year-old Dawn Villarreal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Dawn Villarreal, a 3-year-old girl who touched the hearts of many in the community, passed away this morning after battling a rare degenerative genetic disorder.<\/p>\n<p>Dawn was 3 years and 10 months old when she lost her fight against the disease. Her grandmother confirmed her passing to our sister station KAJA Telemundo news anchor Nina Martinez.<\/p>\n<p>We first reported about Dawn last year when her family was struggling to find a vehicle to transport the toddler to her medical appointments. The community rallied around the family&#8217;s need, with local supporter Pete Trevino organizing a barbecue fundraiser that raised enough money to purchase a van for Dawn&#8217;s transportation.<\/p>\n<p>Despite her young age and health challenges, Dawn made a lasting impact on those who knew her story. Her family and the community members who supported her are mourning the loss of a child who brought light to many lives.<\/p>\n<p>The family is receiving condolences from the community during this difficult time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Dawn Villarreal, a 3-year-old girl who touched the hearts of many in the community,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156,51271,819],"class_list":["post-116629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news","tag-dawn-villareal","tag-in-your-neighborhood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}