Only three days before she died in hospital, Rebekah Baptiste made one last effort to escape the “horrendous abuse” she was suffering at the hands of her father and his girlfriend.
Now, a chilling 911 is shedding light on the final, heartbreaking moments of the 10-year-old – revealing allegations of “torture,” desperate escape attempts, and a system that reportedly failed to protect her.
On July 27, the Apache County Sheriff’s Office said that 10-year-old Rebekah Baptiste was found on a highway in Holbrook, north Arizona with “severe injuries” and unresponsive.
Three days later, the child died at Phoenix Children’s Hospital.
Rebekah, described as “a bright light,” had reportedly been trying to escape her abusive rather, Richard Baptiste, 32, and his girlfriend, Anicia Woods, 29, who claimed she kept running away.
Repeated escape attempts
According to Fox, that reviewed a 36-page report from the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office, the family had been living off-grid in a yurt with no electricity or running water since moving from Phoenix earlier in July. The group had been sleeping on thin mattresses and hauled water in jugs from a store 15 miles away.
Records show this was not the first time Rebekah tried to flee – she had previously jumped from a window in Phoenix and made multiple escape attempts after the move to Concho. The final attempt reportedly took place the same day she was rushed to the hospital.
‘Torture’
Despite Rebekah’s severe decline – becoming too weak to drink from a straw – Woods, who claimed to have a nursing background, told authorities she believed the child “would be fine” and did not seek medical help.
When questioned, both adults initially denied knowing the cause of Rebekah’s physical condition, but doctors – one who described her treatment as “torture” – found evidence of prolonged abuse, including brain hemorrhage, burn marks, missing toenails and hair, and numerous cuts and bruises.
Striking admission
Fox News reports that detectives described “horrendous photos” of Rebekah’s injuries and noted that her father showed no visible emotion when confronted with the images.
“After seeing these photos, I knew there would be no way a father would not notice the extensive injuries on his daughter, it would be impossible in my mind, for a father not to see these huge marks and bruises on his child,” the officer wrote in the report.
Later, Baptiste admitted to striking his daughter with a belt for running away but denied causing her head injuries. Investigators also found bloody clothing in the family’s tent.
Since, Baptiste and Woods have been arrested in connection with her death and both face first-degree murder, kidnapping, and three counts of child abuse – two of those charges tied to the alleged mistreatment of Rebekah’s younger brothers, who are now in state custody.
DCS ‘turned a blind eye to it’
“She was black and blue from her head to toe. She had two black eyes, and they’re thinking the cause of death was because of a hemorrhage,” Rebekah’s uncle, Damon Hawkins, told Arizona Family.
Hawkins, who said that several times he and his wife had called Department of Child Safety (DCS) for help, believes a broken child protection system played a role in her brutal death.
“She spent the last four days in the hospital by herself, and the only thing DCS can say is, ‘I’m sorry you weren’t informed,’” Hawkins told reporters, per AZ Family, describing his devastation and frustration.
“She [Rebekah] was my biggest concern. The answer we always got was ‘they’re kids, they’re in trouble. They’re in trouble,’” Hawkins said, adding that the last time he saw the children, he could “see the fear in their eyes when it was time to go home.”
“I made it clear to the investigator and DCS that the system failed her. We have logs and logs of the times where, over the past years where they’ve been contacted of the worry that we had. We got word of sexual abuse about a year and a half ago, and they [DCS] turned a blind eye to it.” Hawkins lamented.
And he wasn’t the only one who begged DCS for help.
School reported concerns to DCS
According to The Mirror, staff at Empower College Prep, the school Rebekah attended, reported concerns about her and her brothers to Arizona’s DCS 12 times between November 2023 and January 2025.
However, a DCS spokesperson said the agency’s records show only five calls from the school, and just one met the legal threshold to trigger an investigation.
“We take every call to our hotline seriously, but we only have the authority to initiate an investigation if the call meets statutory report criteria,” said DCS spokesperson Darren DaRonco.
But, Brian Holman, Executive Director of Empower College Prep, said the school “cannot explain why DCS is missing records of our calls” and was never told that its complaints failed to meet the statutory threshold for abuse.
Holman also said at least 20 additional reports about the family were made to DCS by outside agencies, the Mirror reports.
The department has confirmed that a review team will now examine the case.
“They didn’t do enough to protect her,” Hawkins said, per AZ Family. “They absolutely failed.”
Chilling 911 call
When Rebekah was found, starving and tortured, a 911 call offers a haunting glimpse into the last moments before emergency crews reached the dying child.
On the recording, the caller’s voice remains strikingly unemotional as she explains her version of what happened.
“She ran away for the third time in a week in the desert, and when the neighbors found her in the wash, she was unresponsive completely,” said a woman, who referred to Rebekah as her daughter, in the call made July 27, per Fox.
“She just ran away. This is like the third time now, and she still hasn’t even, like, really bounced back from the first time,” the woman said. “But when the neighbor found her, said that she was just almost gasping.”
She continued, “By the time she got back to the house, she was barely breathing, so I’m breathing for her now. She’s unresponsive, unconscious, and unable to breathe for herself.”
When asked by the dispatcher if she knew CPR, the woman replied, “Yes, I do, unfortunately.”
The call ends with sirens in the background as paramedics approach.
“You didn’t deserve any of this…I will forever miss you my peanut and I am so so sorry I couldn’t be there to protect you from those evil monsters,” Hawkins writes to Rebekah in a Facebook post.
For many, the heartbreaking details of her final days raise urgent questions about how a vulnerable child slipped through so many cracks – and whether systemic change will come soon enough to save others.
