Texas woman whose 'Miracle Child' was product of adopted daughter's rape gets 33 years

A San Antonio woman pleaded guilty on Friday to three counts of aggravated assault after police accused her of participating in her husband's rape of their adopted daughter and forcing her to act as a surrogate for a child they later advertised as a curandero.

By Sara Coello

A woman was sentenced to 33 years in prison for forcing her adopted daughter to carry her husband's children, one of whom the couple advertised as a miracle cure.

Laura Castillo pleaded guilty Friday to three counts of aggravated sexual assault and was sentenced this week in a San Antonio court.

Castillo originally dismissed the then-9-year-old victim's complaints that Laura's husband, Eusebio Castillo was abusing her, then began participating in forced threesomes and demanded that the victim act as a surrogate, the victim told the San Antonio Express-News.

The girl had her first child at age 17. Castillo advertised the oldest of the three resulting children, dubbed The Miracle Child," as having healing powers to cure cancer patients who gathered in a makeshift chapel in the back of the family's house, and collected donations from visitors.

The family moved from Hawaii to Houston, Laredo, Mission and San Antonio. Authorities say Eusebio and Laura Castillo later fled to San Juan, Texas, where they were arrested in February and June 2017, respectively.

Everywhere they went, Eusebio would threaten to kill himself, and sometimes the children, if the victim contacted the authorities, the 28-year-old victim told the Express-News.

"When [Laura] dies, it's me and you," she said Eusebio told her. “We're going to get married and have more kids and continue the chapel. On the outside we'll be father and daughter, but on the inside we're married.”

Eusebio Castillo is awaiting trial in Bexar County.