Couple sentenced to life in death of 3-year-old girl

By Mary Manning

Published Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2008 | 11:12 a.m.

Updated Friday, Oct. 10, 2008 | 7:52 p.m.

A mother was sentenced Friday to life in prison with the possibility of parole in the death of her 3-year-old daughter, while her former boyfriend was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Gladys Perez, 26, and former boyfriend, 30-year-old Marc Anthony Colon were sentenced in District Court.

A Clark County jury on Wednesday found Perez and Colon guilty of first-degree murder and child abuse in the death of 3-year-old Crystal Figueroa, whose battered body was discovered in an apartment complex trash bin.

A man called Metro Police on Jan. 12, 2006, and said he had found the body of a dead child in a trash bin at the Fountains of Villa Cordova Apartments, 2800 S. Eastern Ave. Enrique Reyes told police he had been searching for discarded electronic equipment in the Dumpster when he discovered the clothed child's body.

The child's white fur jacket with red hearts on it was televised nationwide. Detectives and crime scene investigators believed the little girl was placed in an empty blue and white microwave box and covered in a blue blanket before she was tossed into the trash bin, the police report said.

Dr. G. Telgenhoff of the Clark County coroner's office performed an autopsy the next day. He discovered Figueroa's body covered with bruises and abrasions, and she had two fractured ribs. Her pancreas had been lacerated, leading to a cause of death as blunt force trauma.

By the end of January, police had no leads in the case.

It took police six weeks to discover the identity of Crystal Figueroa.

The child's grandmother, Lila Perez, filed a police report Feb. 22 saying her daughter, Gladys, had called her and asked for money. Gladys Perez told her mother that Crystal was somewhere in Nevada or California, which triggered a broader search by police.

When police interviewed Gladys Perez at her mother's home, she told of how she, Colon and his two daughters and her two daughters, Lesly and Crystal, had left California on Jan. 10 and drove to Las Vegas.

It was the child's grandmother who identified Crystal.

The couple, with the four children, stayed at the Stratosphere Hotel before moving to a weekly apartment on Carson Street. Colon went gambling on Jan. 11 and lost most of their money, police learned. Perez said Colon was giving Crystal a bath late that night or early on Jan. 12 after she vomited. The mother left to buy medicine, and when she returned she told police Crystal had a seizure.

The couple took Crystal and went looking for a hospital, but they did not go in, fearing that visible injuries on both Gladys and Crystal would result in issues with the hospital staff. Colon was on parole at the time, according to the police report.

Shortly after, as the couple continued to drive around Las Vegas, Crystal stopped breathing in the car. At that point, Colon decided to put Crystal's body into a trash bin and call 911. The couple then gathered the three remaining children and drove to California.

Prosecutors in the case had charged Colon with first-degree murder and plan to seek the death penalty.

Perez's defense attorneys argued that she had been a battered wife and a victim of domestic violence.