CONROE, Texas — A Texas family is grieving the death of an 11-year-old boy who was found dead Tuesday in the family’s mobile home, which was without power as temperatures dropped below freezing.
Cristian Pavon was unresponsive when his mother checked on him at about 2:30 p.m., The Washington Post reported. The boy was sleeping in because there was no school in Conroe, a city located 40 miles north of Houston, and he was sleeping under a pile of blankets in his family’s unheated mobile home, the newspaper reported.
However, Pavon did not respond when his mother, Maria Elisa Pineda, attempted to wake him, according to Univision.
Pineda and the boy’s stepfather, Manuel Moreno, 38, immediately called 911, the Post reported.
It was too late. The boy was pronounced dead later that afternoon, and authorities are trying to determine whether Pavon died of hypothermia, the newspaper reported.
An 11-year-old boy died in an unheated Texas mobile home. Authorities suspect hypothermia. https://t.co/5mXhmjiFsc
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 19, 2021
“He was OK,” Pineda told Univision. “He had dinner, he played and he went to bed.”
“He fell asleep. He had a shirt, a sweater, two pairs of pants, socks on,” the boy’s aunt, Jaliza Yera, told KHOU. “It was like, 2 a.m., when my brother-in-law woke up to use the restroom and made sure he even put another blanket on them.”
The boy, who was born in Tela, Honduras, had been excited to see snow for the first time on Monday, KTRK reported.
“That’s why he was excited outside,” Pineda told the Houston Chronicle. “Everything was well. He was happy that day. He was not at all sick.”
Pavon had been reunited with his mother in 2019 after not seeing her for more than a year, according to Univision.
“He told his mom to take video of him in the snow,” Yera told the television station. “To take pictures of him and that was the last time she has any videos of him.
“I’m heartbroken, I had never imagined any of this was going to happen.”
The Conroe Police Department screened Pineda and Moreno for drugs and gave them blood tests, Sgt. Jeff Smith told the Chronicle.
“By all other means, he was a normal, healthy child,” Smith told the newspaper. An autopsy was performed on Thursday, and it could be several weeks before a cause of death is confirmed, Smith said.
Officials are still investigating the cause of death, KHOU reported.
The family has started a GoFundMe page to send Pavon’s body to Honduras.
Pavon had told his family that he wanted to return to his native country to see his grandparents and build them a small house, the Post reported.
“But it was not to be,” Pineda told the Chronicle. “Those wishes were not fulfilled.”
Cox Media Group
