Flavaine Carvalho was not supposed to work shifts at Ms. Potato restaurant on New Year’s Day, but someone called in sick, so she filled in, her boss Rafaela Cabede said at a press conference Thursday afternoon.
It had been busy for the rest of the day since the holidays, but it finally slowed down and that family was the last table of the night, she said.
“We truly believe this was a sacred provision, and we were very blessed to have been able to help this child,” Cabede explained.
“Because of her, two children were … saved,” Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolon said at the press conference. “We probably would have been talking about a possible murder investigation if she hadn’t intervened when she did.”
Carvalho said the boy wore a mask and hood while sitting at the table, along with two adults and a young girl.
Although she couldn’t see much, Carvalho said she noticed he had a scratch between his eyebrows and that he didn’t order or eat anything, even though food had been brought to the table.
‘You don’t deny food for a child’
Carvalho said she thought it strange that the child was not eating and that he was quiet while the others were talking and playing.
She asked the table if their food and drink were okay. When one of the adults replied that the boy would eat his dinner at home, Carvalho said she was beginning to think something else was going on.
“You don’t deny food for a child, especially in a restaurant,” Carvalho said.
She then saw bruises on the side of the boy’s face and arm and decided to see what she could do to help him.
“I just thought I had to do something,” Carvalho explained. “I couldn’t watch him leave without help.”
Caravalho wrote a note asking the boy if he was okay and stood behind the parents where they couldn’t see.
The boy nodded no. “I knew – that he is scared or that he doesn’t like saying he needs help,” said Carvalho.
So she decided to write another note.
This one said, “Do you need help?” Carvalho said the boy nodded yes and “made a movement with his hands that showed he didn’t know what to do.”
Carvalho called her boss and then called 911.
In an emergency number, Carvalho lets the dispatchers know she is concerned about the boy.
“One of the children has a lot of bruises on his arms and on his face and the parent does not feed him but gives to the other children who are with them,” she said in the recording provided by the Orlando Police Department. ‘I’m super worried and I don’t know what to do. Can you give me some advice? ‘
The boy describes allegations of abuse
Police arrived and questioned the child, who told detectives that he had been the victim of abuse by his stepfather, identified by police as Timothy Lee Wilson II, Detective Erin Lawler of the Orlando Police Department’s Special Victims Unit said at the news conference. .
The boy told detectives that he had been beaten with a wooden broom, hung upside down on a door and that he was regularly denied food as punishment, according to a press release from Orlando police.
Wilson was arrested at the restaurant, and the boy’s mother, Kristen Swann, was taken into custody on Jan. 6 after the boy made additional revelations about alleged abuse, Lawler said.
The stepfather is charged with multiple counts of aggravated child abuse and neglect, court records show.
A press release from Orlando police said Swann admitted to investigators that she was aware of the abuse and had not sought medical care for her son. She is charged with two counts of child neglect, court records show.
A 4-year-old child was taken from the house after the parents’ arrests and was found not to have been abused, according to Lawler.
‘It shocks your soul’
Lawler said the boy is Swann’s child and the 4-year-old is Swann and Wilson’s child.
After Carvalho called 911, the boy was taken to a hospital for his injuries, where he was found to be 20 pounds too light for his age, according to Lawler.
Bruising all over the boy’s body at various stages of healing was also noted, Lawler said.
“What this child had been through was torture,” Lawler said with tears in her eyes. “I’m a mom and when I see what that 11-year-old had to go through … it shocks your soul.”
“If Mrs. Carvalho hadn’t said anything when she saw it, that little boy probably wouldn’t be with us much longer,” she added.
Lawler said the boy told investigators he had been assaulted on Christmas Day when the parents said Santa suggested he be punished. The punishment included being handcuffed to a furniture van, Lawler said, with his hands behind his back with straps around his ankles and made to free himself. He was also hung upside down by his ankles in a doorway with webbing straps, Lawler said.
The detective said the parents said they would punish him by letting him do planks for 30 minutes and hit him if he couldn’t.
Wilson and Swann were both booked into the Orange County Jail.
CNN has contacted a lawyer for Wilson but has not heard from it. CNN has not been able to determine whether Swann has legal representation.
Court records show that on Jan. 6, Wilson was present for the first time on four charges, including three charges of child abuse and one child neglect.
They both remain in the Orange County Jail, Heidi Rodriguez, spokeswoman for the Orlando police force, told CNN in an email Thursday.