‘We’ve never heard him admit it’: Utah man pleads guilty to child abuse 29 years after her death

For 29 years, Vanessa Nieto’s family members believed they knew who was responsible for the toddler’s death.

Louis Duran — who was dating the girl’s mother — was the only adult at home Oct. 3, 1988, when the 15-month-old girl suffered devastating injuries that killed her.

Years went by. A police investigation languished. Charges weren’t filed.

The girl’s mother, Dawn Nieto, would call the police station every year on Vanessa’s birthday or the date of her death and ask if there was anything new in the case. Usually, there wasn’t.

That is until 2014, when a Salt Lake City detective reopened the case after finding old police files gathering dust on a shelf. Duran was charged that year with first-degree felony murder, accused of beating the child to death.

And on Tuesday, the criminal case against him ended in a plea deal — the now-57-year-old Duran pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree felony child abuse and the murder charge was dropped.

For Vanessa’s aunt Richelle Fernandez, even the admission of child abuse after all these years provided some closure for her family.

“Just him admitting it is something we all needed to hear,” she said after the hearing. “Especially my sister. We’ve never heard him admit it, take responsibility for it.”

Duran admitted in plea documents filed Tuesday that he sucked on the girl’s cheek and bit her arm, leaving marks. On the day the child died, he said, he “was heavily under the influence of illegal drugs and slept much of the day, not providing care or supervision of the children or [Vanessa]. … During that time [she] suffered multiple bruises/injuries to her head.”

His “reckless failure to care” for the child led her to receive multiple injuries, the man admitted in court papers.

A medical examiner found that Vanessa had suffered fatal “high-impact blows” to her head — though an initial police investigation 2½ decades ago had concluded that the child died from sudden infant death syndrome, also known as SIDS.

Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Robert Parrish said Tuesday that a plea deal was the best option, rather than taking the risk of an acquittal if prosecutors had gone to trial on the murder charge.

“This is a 29-year-old case,” he said. “Any case that old is going to have problems.”

Duran faces a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced Jan. 10.

Fernandez and Gina Kirby, Vanessa’s aunts, said they hope he gets the maximum penalty — but no amount of time could make up for what was taken from them.

Vanessa was a beautiful little girl, they said Tuesday. They laughed as they remembered their niece, running around, swimming, swinging. She always wanted hugs and kisses, and she clung to her mother — “a momma’s girl” who was at times spoiled, they said.

As they stood outside of the courtroom Tuesday where the man who harmed their niece finally admitted to what he had done years ago, the aunts cried, looking at an old, worn photo of Vanessa in a frilly white dress and bows in her hair.

“The hardest thing,” Kirby said, “is knowing that we couldn’t help her.”

“She couldn’t talk,” Fernandez continued. “She couldn’t tell us what was happening to her.”