This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
When prosecutor Kimberly Crandall asked Dawn Nieto what she saw when she checked on her daughter, the mother needed a moment before responding.
Her 15-month-old daughter, Vanessa, had died that day 26 years ago. One of Nieto's then-roommates, Louis Duran, was in 3rd District Court on Thursday to determine whether there is enough evidence to try him for Vanessa's death.
The 53-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder, a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison. After a day of testimony, Duran's preliminary hearing was continued to Oct. 30 before Judge Deno Himonas.
Nieto had moved in with Duran and his sister after leaving "a bad relationship" with the girl's father, according to the charges. Vanessa did not have any injuries or bruises before moving in, the charges add.
But on the witness stand, she described how Vanessa had bruises to her head and cheeks shortly before she died. The head bruise happened first; Nieto had come home one day after leaving Vanessa at the Salt Lake City apartment, and was told that the child may have fallen off the bed.
It was Oct. 3, 1988, when Nieto last saw her 15-month-old daughter alive.
"I remember getting up and giving her a bath," Nieto said. "She loved having her bath."
Nieto left with her friend to run errands that day, leaving Vanessa at home with Duran, since she thought Vanessa was sick. She was asleep with a bottle by the time Nieto left.
She still appeared to be asleep when Nieto came back in the afternoon. Nieto left again to run more errands and picked up an order of French fries at Wienerschnitzel, since Vanessa liked them.
Nieto returned to the apartment, near 400 S. 1000 West, at dusk. But when she set the food down and went in to check on Vanessa, she could see vomit on the side of the girl's mouth. Her mouth looked blue.
"I just remember grabbing her [under her arms]," Nieto said. She felt stiff in her mother's arms. "… I started screaming, 'What happened, what happened, what's wrong with her?' "
Nieto took her to the front room and put water on her face to try to wake her up. In the background, she could hear Duran saying he was sorry. "That's one thing I've always remembered."
The next thing she knew, the house was full of police and paramedics, she said. The paramedics pronounced the baby dead.
But the case went cold. On the anniversaries of Vanessa's birthday and the day she died, Nieto would call the Salt Lake City police and ask about any new developments. "Every year, I called," she said.
But more recently, a police detective requested to review Vanessa's case file, as part of the department's ongoing cold case investigations, and was able to find and interview several witnesses to events leading up to the death of the child. The detective determined that the case had been "inappropriately closed," according to the charges against Duran.
A medical examiner also recently reviewed the initial autopsy and determined the girl suffered blows to the head, which caused complications that killed her. The medical examiner also verified that the toddler suffered older injuries and fresher injuries not related to the ones that killed her, all of which "are consistent with having been inflicted by another person," according to the charges.
Detectives interviewed Duran earlier this year, and he told them that he was taking care of the girl the day she died and that no other adult was there. While he admitted to having caused bite marks on the girl's forearm and face, he "otherwise said he couldn't tell the officers what happened that day," according to the charges.
Duran was eventually charged and arrested in May.
"She was a good child," Nieto said Thursday. "She was a really smart baby."
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