Phoenix police continue search for 18-year-old in boy's death

PHOENIX - Police are continuing their search for a suspect in the death of a 2-year-old boy over the weekend in Phoenix .

Wendy Rogel-Pagas, 18, was arrested in the death of her young son and police are looking for her boyfriend, 18-year-old Juan Garcia.

"It is absolutely a brutal, brutal homicide,” Phoenix Sgt. Trent Crump said.

Phoenix fire crews pronounced 2-year-old Jorge I. Zamora-Rogel dead at a home near 39th Avenue and Encanto Boulevard.

Police say there was evidence of trauma to the child's head and body and arrested his mother on child abuse charges.

According to police, Garcia brought food home, but when his girlfriend's son wouldn't come out to eat he pulled the child by his ear.

When the child started crying, Garcia got enraged and “picked him up by his throat literally and begins smashing his head against a bedroom wall," Crump said.

Rogel-Pagas told investigators she tried to stop her boyfriend from beating her child before he took off.

Police say they don't understand why she never called for help even though she was alone for an hour and a half before Garcia came back home.

Garcia tried to revive the child by picking him up and dropping him on the floor, Crump said.

By that point, the child had stopped breathing and his heart was no longer beating.

Garcia is described as 5 feet 8 inches tall, 170 pounds, and possibly driving a gray 2005 Nissan Altima with an Arizona license plate of ANJ3755.

Anyone with information on Garcia's whereabouts should call the Phoenix Police Department at 602-262-6141 or Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS OR 480-TESTIGO for Spanish.