With plea deal, Bella Vista mom gets life in son’s death

Cathy Torres of Bella Vista arrives Wednesday with one of her attorneys, Tony Pirani, at the Benton County Courthouse annex in Bentonville.
Cathy Torres of Bella Vista arrives Wednesday with one of her attorneys, Tony Pirani, at the Benton County Courthouse annex in Bentonville.

BENTONVILLE — A Bella Vista woman on Wednesday was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of her 6-year-old son in 2015.

Cathy Lynn Torres, 45, pleaded guilty to capital murder and first-degree battery. She pleaded guilty under a plea agreement reached between defense attorneys Tony Pirani and Jay Saxton with Nathan Smith, Benton County prosecuting attorney.

Smith agreed to waive the death penalty as part of the plea agreement. Torres’ trial was scheduled to begin in May.

Maurice Isaiah Torres, 6, died March 30, 2015, at a Bella Vista hospital. A medical examiner said the boy’s death was caused by a bacterial infection as a result of being sodomized with a stick. The medical examiner also said chronic child abuse contributed to the child’s death.

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Mauricio Torres, her husband and the boy’s father, was sentenced to death in November after a jury found him guilty of capital murder and first-degree battery.

Benton County Circuit Judge Brad Karren sentenced Mauricio Torres to death by lethal injection.

Karren accepted the plea agreement and Cathy Torres’ guilty pleas on Wednesday.

She was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for the murder and 20 years for battery.

A jury last year watched and listened to a video recording of Mauricio Torres confessing to putting a stick in his son’s rectum.

Mauricio Torres told Bella Vista police Capt. Tim Cook in the interview that he put a stick in his son’s rectum and that Cathy Torres later shoved the boy down on the stick.

The couple lived with Isaiah and his two sisters, who were adopted after their parents’ arrest.

There are no women on death row in Arkansas, according to the website of the Arkansas Department of Correction’s website.

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