30-year sentence for child killer
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“A CRIMINALLY VIOLENT ATTACK”
Joe Gallardo
A Pearsall man has pleaded guilty in a case involving the death of a two-year-old boy who was severely beaten in the head and who succumbed to the injuries in a San Antonio hospital more than seven years ago.
Joe Gallardo, 44, appeared before District Judge Russell Wilson on Wednesday, March 29, and asked for leniency in his sentencing, but prosecutors presented evidence indicating the assault on the child had been vicious and had involved brute force. Judge Wilson subsequently handed down a 30-year prison sentence for the defendant.
Pearsall police had been dispatched to an apartment complex on the northwest side of town on Friday, September 11, 2015, to find paramedics treating a 23-month-old child who appeared to have sustained a series of heavy blows to the head.
A police interview with the child’s mother revealed that the toddler had been in the care of her boyfriend, whom she identified as Gallardo.
The report indicated that the he man had called the mother while she was at work to report that the boy was unresponsive.
Prosecutors in the case believe that Gallardo had forcefully and repeatedly struck the child.
The child was transported by helicopter to University Hospital in San Antonio for treatment in the intensive care unit. He died three days later.
“The injuries that child sustained were indicative of a criminally violent attack,” former Pearsall Police Chief and current Frio County Chief Deputy Peter Salinas said. “The child had swelling and bleeding in his brain.”
Gallardo provided investigating officers with no explanation for how the child had sustained the injuries. A medical report indicated that the toddler’s injuries were caused by “blunt force trauma to the boy’s head with a large amount of force.”
The report also noted that the toddler’s head injuries were similar to those that might be sustained in a car crash.
According to a prepared statement by the 81st Judicial District Attorney’s Office, Gallardo later claimed the boy suffered the brain injury when he fell off a small motorized car.
Judge Wilson sentenced Gallardo to confinement in a Texas Department of Criminal Justice correctional facility on conviction of a third-degree felony charge for injury to a child with intent to commit severe bodily injury. Gallardo had been set to face a jury trial in early January but he opted to accept the plea agreement on the second day of jury selection.
“This case was presented to a grand jury in 2017,” District Attorney Audrey Louis said earlier this week. “It was set for trial when COVID hit. Once he was set for trial again, he fired his attorneys, which pushed the trial back again.”
Gallardo’s attorney sought leniency from the court and asked Judge Wilson to place Gallardo on probation last week.
“That was the most senseless of crimes as the victim of the crime is the most innocent,” Salinas said. “No child should ever be lost based on an act of violence. We will never know who this child could have become or what he could have accomplished with his precious life.”
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