‘The government made me do it,’ says TX dad charged with killing 2-year-old daughter
A 26-year-old southeast Texas man is being held on a $2 million bond after he was charged with capital murder in the death of his young daughter, Orange County officials told McClatchy.
The body of Yovahnis Fabian Roque’s 2-year-old daughter was found in a bedroom in his Orange, Texas, home Tuesday, according to the Beaumont Enterprise.
Police initially said the little girl had been stabbed to death, the Associated Press reported. But what was first reported as a stabbing may have been something even more gruesome, according to later reporting.
Police later said that Roque beat the toddler to death with a hammer, according to KFDM. When police arrived at Roque’s house just after 11 a.m. Tuesday and asked him his name, he responded, “I killed my daughter,” the station reported.
Roque was wheeled into the Orange County Courthouse by Orange County Sheriff’s Deputies Wednesday morning, shackled to his wheelchair, giving blank stares under his thick, long hair to members of the media who peppered him with questions, video obtained by KBMT shows.
Roque has been in the wheelchair since recovering from a coma following a 2016 wreck, when a suspected drunk driver crashed into the car he and his then girlfriend were in, killing her and seriously injuring Roque, according to WTVJ. Rachel Foster, who was 24, is the mother of the 2-year-old girl Roque is accused of killing, KBMT reported.
During his court appearance Wednesday, Roque told Orange County Judge Courtney Arkeen that “the government made me do it,” that he has no control of his own body and repeated, “I don’t know what you guys want from me,” throughout the hearing, according to KFDM.
Roque will continue to be held in the Orange County Correctional Center unless his defense lawyers request a change of venue, Detective Janois Grizzaffi, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman, told McClatchy.
“He’ll stay here, barring anything out of the ordinary,” Grizzaffi said. “But this is a fairly unusual case.”
Orange, Texas, is located near the Louisiana border, about 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
This story was originally published February 20, 2019 at 4:15 PM with the headline "‘The government made me do it,’ says TX dad charged with killing 2-year-old daughter."
