A TODDLER died in North Dakota after she was given alcohol, burned with chemicals and raped while being watched by a babysitter, her aunt claims.
Meka Marie Carrillo, just 15 months old, died on Tuesday when her family took her off life support four days after she was found unconscious at a home in Fargo, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
Fargo police said in a statement that officials were waiting for results of autopsy and toxicology tests to determine if a crime had been committed, the outlet reported.
But Amanda Carrillo, the girl’s aunt, wrote in a GoFundMe post that her niece was “horribly abused and tortured by her temporary caretaker.”
Carrillo alleged in the post that she first heard Meka was on her way to the emergency room on Nov. 20 from the caretaker.
“When I arrived, it was like I was walking into a Lifetime movie crime scene. They had brown paper evidence bags and rulers to measure the wounds and evidence recording equipment,” she wrote.
Carrillo claimed, while in the hospital, the caretaker told her that Meka was “just sick.”
But Carrillo said she spoke to detectives at the hospital and “it became clear that Meka wasn’t just sick.”
A graphic photo shared to the fundraiser shows little Meka in the hospital fighting for her life with closed eyes, covered by a purple blanket.
“She had been horribly abused, burned with chemicals, given alcohol, battered, and raped multiple ways,” Carrillo said.
She continued: “There are even more horrific details to the torture and murder that I don’t want the world to have to suffer knowing but my family and I keep replaying in our heads.”
Carrillo claimed that the unnamed woman had prevented the family from seeing the child to hide the abuse.
“It started making sense why she had so many excuses when we wanted to see Meka and check up on her,” Carrillo alleged.
She also claimed that “numerous people” knew about the abuse and “just allowed the torture to continue.”
Carrillo said that money raised will be used to hire a lawyer to help prosecute “the people that tortured and killed her” and to help Meka’s father get temporary release from prison for her funeral.
The father is allegedly in a Crookston prison for a crime unrelated to Meka’s situation, Carrillo said.
The GoFundMe reached $3,445 of its $10,000 goal by Sunday evening.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the child’s family during this difficult time,” Fargo Police said in a statement obtained by KVRR.