PASCO — A 25-year-old Pasco mother is accused of whipping her 6-year-old daughter with a HDMI cable until another adult stopped her.
The woman then went to the store, leaving the girl alone in their Margaret Street apartment, according to court documents. When Adriana Rivas returned, her daughter was missing and she called police for help.
Officers later found the girl safe at the girl’s grandmother home.
Rivas was arrested and charged in Franklin County Superior Court with second-degree assault of a child. She pleaded innocent and remains in the Franklin County jail in lieu of $75,000.
Her two daughters were taken into protective custody, according to court documents.
“The facts alleged in this case are absolutely horrific,” Deputy Prosecutor Dave Corkrum said as he asked to keep Rivas’ bail at $75,000.
He noted that Rivas has 22 probation violations and failed to show up in court 24 times.
Her attorney, Tim Dickerson, pointed out that she is employed and is a student at Columbia Basin College, and her past offenses were not violent and happened when she was a juvenile.
“She is in danger of losing her home and pets,” he said. “She has no money and no way of posting bail.”
Judge David Petersen said he believed she posed a threat to the community. He said he was reviewing some search warrants in her case while the girl was missing and he fully expected the child would be found dead rather than injured.
Court documents don’t say what the search warrants were for.
Missing 6-year-old
Pasco police initially went to Rivas’ apartment about 7:45 p.m. Aug. 22 after her mother found the girl wasn’t there, according to court documents.
Rivas initially told police, she left the child at home because she pooped her pants and she went to Fred Meyer on the bus with her 8-year-old daughter to buy food and toilet paper.
Once Detective Julie Lee read Rivas her rights, Rivas admitted to becoming so angry at the girl that she “saw red” and started whipping her with an HDMI cable, Lee wrote in the affidavit.
“Adriana said that she hit the child so many times, she couldn’t give me a number,” Lee wrote.
She stopped when a man named Henry Lopez stepped in and told her to stop. Court documents don’t explain what his relationship was to Rivas and the girls.
She told investigators that she left the girl on her potty chair and went to the store, and when she returned the girl was missing.
Lopez provided police different information. He said he saw bruises on the girl the day before after finding her in the bathtub. Then he saw her again in the bathtub with bruises on her face on Aug. 22.
He said he took Rivas to Fred Meyer so she could go shopping. Then he went to her mother’s home and told her what Rivas had done to the girl.
Court records don’t say whether the girl’s grandmother came to pick her up.
The girl was taken to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland, where medical staff reported finding new and old bruises on the girl, as well as red markings that appeared to have come from being hit with a cord.
