An Orlando restaurant manager saved a child from an abusive stepdad by calling 911 during their stay at her establishment over a year ago.
On June 6, the suspect, Timothy Lee Wilson II, 36, was charged with several counts of abuse and neglect. He is set to be sentenced this summer.
It was New Year’s Day, 2021, when Flavaine Carvalho, who runs Mrs. Potato Restaurant on South Kirkman Road, served Wilson, his 11-year-old stepson, and his mom and noticed that, while the adults ordered for themselves, the boy was denied food.
When Carvalho asked if there was a problem with the food, Wilson said the boy would eat dinner at home later that night.
She noticed tell-tale signs of abuse and became concerned.
“I could see he had a big scratch between his eyebrows,” Carvalho said at a recent news conference. “Couple of minutes later, I saw a bruise on the side of his eye. So I felt there was something really wrong.”
She added, “I could not see the boy going away without any help.”
The manager took the initiative and wrote a note saying “Do you need help? OK” and discreetly showed him, standing behind the parents so that they wouldn’t see it.
He declined initially, but when she showed him the note again, he nodded affirmatively. Carvalho called 911 and told the dispatcher:
“I’m super concerned and I don’t know what to do, can you give me some advice? What I can do? ... The boy is with bruises and he’s not eating. The others are eating.”
Police arrived, and both Wilson and the child’s mom, Kristen Swann, 31, were arrested.
Last Monday, Wilson was found guilty of 2 counts of false imprisonment of a child under the age of 13, 3 counts of aggravated child abuse with a weapon, 4 counts of aggravated child abuse, and 1 count of child neglect, Orlando Police Department stated.
Swann was charged with 2 counts of child neglect after she told police she knew about the abuse but didn’t intervene.
After being taken to the hospital, the boy was found to have bruising all around his face and arms and was 20 pounds underweight for his age. He had been subjected to other kinds of abuse, police said, including being tied up with ratchet straps around his ankles and neck, hung upside down from a door, and beaten with a wooden broom. He was also forced to hold the plank position for as long as 30 minutes, and was beaten if he failed.
“What this child had gone through, it was torture,” police said. “Seeing what that 11-year-old had to go through, it shocks your soul.”
Meanwhile, police lauded her for her heroic intervention. “If Ms. Carvalho would not have said something when she saw it, that little boy would probably not be with us, much longer,” they stated.
Wilson is set to be sentenced on August 19, 2022.
