A 9-year-old Arizona girl once jumped from a second-floor window and begged strangers to help her escape abuse at home, only to be returned by the police.
Months later, police found her dying on the side of a highway. She did not survive.
Rebekah Baptiste, 10, was found unresponsive near the intersection of two highways in Holbrook, Arizona, in late July. Authorities rushed her to the hospital, but she died three days later from what doctors described as non-accidental trauma.
Highlights
- Rebekah Baptiste, 10, was found unresponsive on an Arizona highway after suffering severe abuse and died days later from non-accidental trauma.
- Despite prior abuse reports and an escape attempt, child services closed the case due to conflicting accounts and a lack of witnesses.
- Baptiste’s injuries included bruises, burns, and abuse marks, with her father and stepmother now charged with murder and child abuse.
One doctor said she was “tortured,” according to AZ Family.
A 10-year-old girl was found unresponsive at the intersection of two highways in Arizona in late July
“She [Baptiste] had bruises from head to toe. There were injuries to her vaginal and anus area. She had damaged, missing toenails and burn marks on her back that appeared to be consistent with cigarette burns,” Kole Soderquist, a deputy with the Apache County Sheriff’s Office, said in September during a court hearing.
Rebekah Baptiste’s father, Richard Baptiste, and her stepmother, Anicia Woods, now face murder charges in connection with her death. They have separately been charged with murder and several counts of child molestation and child abuse, per online court records.
Nine months before her death, in October 2024, Baptiste had escaped from her father’s second-floor Phoenix apartment and asked for help from a homeless person and a gas station employee.
Image credits: Apache County Sheriff's Office
She was taken to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, where police and the Arizona Department of Child Safety interviewed her. Baptiste told the police that she ran away after getting in trouble with Woods, who thought she was pretending to sleep, a police report obtained by ABC 15 stated.
Baptiste alleged Woods had made her run laps as punishment and “hit her with a brush on the back of her hand.” Officers also noted “faint bruising and marks on the back of both of her [Baptiste’s] hands.”
Baptiste added that Woods hit her feet with a belt. She showed officers red marks on both feet, saying, “It has happened a lot.”
Image credits: GoFundMe
Woods denied abusing the child and told police that Baptiste’s injuries were self-inflicted, claiming that she was hurting herself with a brush the night before.
An Arizona Department of Child Safety investigator said that since they had conflicting reports of Baptiste’s self-harming and Woods’s abuse, along with a lack of witnesses, they had determined the incident did not rise to the level of criminal prosecution. The case was closed a month later.
Months before her death, Baptiste had begged strangers for help
Image credits: Apache County Sheriff's Office
Reports later revealed that Baptiste’s school had contacted child services at least 12 times over the years with concerns about her safety. Those reports did not lead to anything. The family had moved from Phoenix to a yurt in a remote part of Apache County in early July 2025, according to ABC 15.
Later that month, police found Baptiste on the side of the highway. Investigators searched the family’s home after her death.
“There were lots of paper towels with blood all over them in a trash can where we found clumps of hair,” Soderquist said.
Image credits: Arizona Superior Court, Apache County/YouTube
Baptiste’s uncle, Damon Hawkins, said he repeatedly warned child services about the situation.
“I made it clear to the investigator and DCS that the system failed her,” he told AZ Family. “We have logs and logs of the times where, over the past years, they’ve been contacted, of the worry that we had.”
Richard Baptiste and Anicia Woods remain in custody. They are scheduled to return to court in January, with a trial planned for June.