What Miami-Dade authorities first treated as a tragic backyard accident is now being painted as a brutal killing tied to months of alleged child sexual abuse.
Detectives say delayed disclosures from an 11-year-old girl led them to arrest a relative in connection with her father's December 2024 death. Investigators now allege the girl's second cousin, 29-year-old Christian Heras, sexually abused her for months and that her father's death was a homicide, not an accidental fall.
Arrest and charges
On June 10, Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge William Altfield signed a search-and-arrest warrant for Heras. According to investigators, deputies located him the next day at the Miami-Dade Special Victims Bureau office and took him into custody there.
Court records and booking logs list first-degree murder, five counts of sexual battery on a minor by an adult, and a resisting arrest charge among the counts Heras now faces. Authorities say he is being held without bond. Those details are outlined in records obtained by Local 10.
Booked into county jail
Miami-Dade Corrections records show Heras was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, the county's main detention facility. The county corrections website maintains the public jail roster and booking data where the arrest was logged, according to the Miami-Dade Corrections & Rehabilitation Department.
What detectives found at the scene
Homestead police and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue responded on Dec. 16, 2024, to a report of a fatal fall in a backyard near Northwest 10th Avenue and 12th Street. What they initially walked into looked like an accident. A closer look, investigators say, told a different story.
A homicide investigator documented a compound skull fracture that exposed the victim's brain, blood on a ladder, and a cement garden brick with strands of hair on it. The Miami-Dade medical examiner later concluded the victim had been bludgeoned to death.
Family members at first described the scene as the result of a drunken fall. Detectives now say the scene appeared staged, and toxicology results showed no alcohol or drugs in the victim's system, according to investigative records.
Those same records say the 11-year-old girl took part in video-recorded forensic interviews, including one in Dallas and another at Kristi House in Miami-Dade County. Her later disclosures in those sessions prompted detectives to re-open the death investigation.
During a subsequent house search, deputies say they found Heras attempting to flee and that he "tensed his body" as they tried to handcuff him. These findings are described by Local 10.
Charges and next steps
Heras now faces the homicide count along with multiple sexual battery charges. Prosecutors are expected to review the arrest packet and set court dates for initial hearings in Miami-Dade circuit court.
Investigators say they will continue to build the case as it moves through the court system, with both the death investigation and the alleged abuse now formally tied together in a single, high-stakes prosecution.
