Roommates allege threats for alerting authorities to 8 abused children

Rosemarie Alvarado: 'I'm just glad we did it'

SAN ANTONIO – Rosemarie Alvarado said she and her roommate, who is now in hiding, have experienced repercussions after they alerted authorities last week to eight allegedly abused children, two of them tied up in a backyard.

“Threats, but no one takes that serious. Not at this time, I don’t,” Alvarado said.

Alvarado said she and her roommate, who didn’t want to be identified, initially hesitated to call 911, worried that what they were hearing next door was none of their business.

She said about a month ago, she heard 33-year-old Porucha Phillips allegedly abusing one of the children.

Alvarado said she heard Phillips say, “You’re not my (expletive) child." She said Phillips started beating the child and she heard screaming and crying.

She said it went on for four straight hours, but no one could see anything because the yard is fenced.

Finally, last Friday, Alvarado said they’d heard enough, so she and her roommate walked to a nearby convenience store to call 911.

“We want to thank the owner for letting us use the phone,” Alvarado said.

When they got back to the house, a friend put a ladder up to the fence to investigate the plaintive cries.

“The baby was tied up and the light hit the ropes,” Alvarado said. “He freaked out. He jumped off the ladder and started screaming, ‘Oh, my God, they’re tied up, they’re tied up!”

Alvarado said Bexar County sheriff’s deputies arrived soon after they made the 911 call.

“Thank God we did, because it ended up being two instead of one,” Alvarado said.

Investigators said they found a little boy and girl, ages two and three. One was chained to the ground, the other tied up with a dog leash.

“They could have died,” said Alvarado’s mother, Anna. “If it hadn’t been for what they did, they could have died.”

Alvarado said she urges others not to second guess whether they should call 911 if they suspect child abuse.

“That’s what we were saying the first time,” Alvarado said. “Had we not, we could have probably done something sooner, but I’m just glad we did it.”

Six other children were found unattended inside the home. Their mother, Phillips, has been charged with injury to a child.

The mother of the two children found tied up in the backyard was located in California and is now being questioned in San Antonio. As of Tuesday, she has not been charged.


About the Author:

Jessie Degollado has been with KSAT since 1984. She is a general assignments reporter who covers a wide variety of stories. Raised in Laredo and as an anchor/reporter at KRGV in the Rio Grande Valley, Jessie is especially familiar with border and immigration issues. In 2007, Jessie also was inducted into the San Antonio Women's Hall of Fame.