Teachers' Notes

Teachers at Adrianna Romero Cram's preschool documented her abuse in hopes of getting help for the little girl. Their notes from 2005, along with photos they took of Adrianna's injuries, became part of the criminal investigation following her murder. Here are excerpts, translated from the original Spanish and edited for clarity:

Teacher: What happened to your hands and your ear? Adrianna: Elizabeth Romero Marin, Adrianna's aunt, "put my hands on the stovetop and had to put toothpaste on it." She pulled my ear because she said "you dirtied your house dress" and "I had to bleed you for that." Teacher: What about your head? Adrianna: "I climbed on top of the hammock and had to hit my head." Teacher asks about eating at home.

Adrianna: "I like to eat tortilla."

Romero Marin "says eat good and with your mouth closed because if your (uncle) sees you he will see how you eat like a little pig."

"She says that I don't have to eat, but I wanted to eat, but she says you will eat, but you will not throw up."

Romero Marin approached a teacher and commented that she feels tense and pressured, feeling a distancing from Adrianna, noticing that it is becoming very difficult even to comb her hair because of the lack of affection she feels. She said her daughter noticed it and asked why she didn't like Adrianna anymore. She also mentioned that she stopped sending Adrianna to the psychologist.

Adrianna showed up with a big bruise on her mouth, specifically on the corner of her mouth and inside, too. When asked, she said she "bit her lip."

Today Adrianna was checked more thoroughly, and new bruises and scrapes were discovered (more recent than the ones we already knew about). On her stomach on her right side, there's a bruise. She says that "it just appeared." When asked how, she answered, "just because" and "the mosquitoes bit me."

She also has a couple of scrapes on her chest that seem deep. When asked what happened, she says that she cut herself with a knife when Romero Marin stepped out for a minute. Later, she volunteers, "the mosquitoes bit me and (Romero Marin) had to punish me." I asked, because the mosquitoes bit you, she punished you? She said, "yes."

I also asked her about eating breakfast before school and she answered, "Yesterday she didn't feed me." I asked her, how about today? "No, today neither."

Today I checked her out again and there's the same scars from the day before, but today she says Romero Marin "hit me with her shoe." I asked her what part of the shoe and she said "the heel." She also said Romero Marin hits her with her belt, with her hand, with a flip-flop and with a yellow belt. She says Hector de Jesus Luna, her uncle, hits her with a dirty undershirt.

When asked about a bruise on her right cheek, Adrianna says Romero Marin hit her for accepting the soup that a neighbor lady offered her.