Crime Stories

The Shameful Death of Elisa Izquierdo

The tragic case of Elisa Izquierdo is an all-too-familiar tale of bureaucratic ineptitude. Her short life and brutal death was so horrendous that it reduced even the most hardened officers to tears. Elisa was born on the 11th of February, 1989, in Woodhull Hospital, Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Gustavo Izquierdo, was an upstanding citizen. He was a Cuban immigrant working as a chef in a homeless shelter where he met Elisa's mother, Awilda Lopez. Awilda, on the other hand, was a struggling drug addict and all throughout the pregnancy, she continued to abuse drugs. As a result, when Elisa was born, she was addicted to crack cocaine. Following her birth, Awilda continued to abuse drugs and lived an unpredictable and dangerous lifestyle. Gustavo worried about the safety of Elisa and filed for full custody which was promptly granted.

And Gustavo did an outstanding job as a father and he doted on his daughter: "She was his life. He would always say she was his princess," a family friend went on to recall.1 Initially, he was clueless on how to raise a child but with help from his co-workers and relatives, Gustavo mastered diapering and feeding. When the time came, Gustavo enrolled Elisa in the prestigious Montessori Day School in Brooklyn. "You couldn't resist that smile. Elisa always clung to people, she had so much love," recollected one of her teachers, Barbara Simmons.2 However, as things were finally on the upswing in Elisa's life, an affidavit was signed which stated that Awilda had overcome her addiction and now had a permanent accommodation at the Farragut Houses in Brooklyn, with her new husband. On paper, it appeared as though Awilda finally had her life together and now she wanted her daughter back.

By 1991, Awilda was granted unsupervised visitation with Elisa. Awilda's two eldest children soon informed relatives that during these visits, Awilda would brutally beat Elisa and claim that she was possessed by the devil. You would think that upon hearing this information, these relatives would take that information straight to authorities. They did not. Elisa began to seem scared and withdrawn and not her usual giddy self. Gustavo and a number of Elisa's teachers noticed that she often arrived back home from these visits bearing bruising. On one occasion, Elisa had bruising around her genitalia. It was observed by Gustavo that Elisa had started to wet the bed and would often be sick once returning home from Awilda. Gustavo went straight to New York's Child Welfare Administration to report these findings, as did one of Elisa's teachers. Elisa herself even confessed to the abuse to a social worker.

Gustavo applied to have the visitation rights ceased. Tragically, the courts denied his application and the visitations were allowed to continue. By 1993, Gustavo had purchased plane tickets and had planned to move back to Cuba, taking Elisa with him. However, Gustavo and Elisa never made the flight – Gustavo was rushed to hospital with respiratory complications and died from lung cancer on the very day they were scheduled to leave for Cuba – 26 May, 1994. The death of Gustavo was the nail in the coffin of Elisa escaping her abusive mother and ultimately, her untimely death.

Upon Gustavo's death, Awilda filed for full custody of Elisa and was supported by social workers and Elisa's court-appointed lawyer who claimed that Elisa wanted to be with her mother. Awilda was subsequently granted temporary custody and upon hearing this alarming news, Elsa Canizares, Gustavo's cousin, also filed for custody. The head teacher of Elisa's school and even Prince Michael of Greece – who had met Elisa when he visited her school – wrote letters to the Judge, informing him of the torment Elisa had experienced at the hands of her own mother. 

Prince Michael even offered Elisa a scholarship to attend private school through to grade 12. They all argued that Elisa wouldn't stand a chance if placed in custody of her mother. Regardless of the mounting evidence as to why Awilda was not a suitable mother, in 1994, she was granted full and permanent custody of Elisa by judge Phoebe Greenbaum, who in 1979, denied a father custody of his 10-year-old son, stating that the boy's grandparents were his "psychological parents."3 It was a decision that would prove to be fatal.