ADAMS COUNTY, Colo. — The murder of a 7-month-old girl in Adams County has sparked efforts to create a new law in Colorado.
Chad Aragon was sentenced to 36 years with the possibility of parole, last week, for the child abuse that ultimately killed Maliah Ramos in 2017. It was Aragon's second child abuse conviction.
Maliah's mom, Alexis Lucero, said she was at work when she got a call from Aragon, Lucero's then-boyfriend. He told her Maliah wasn't breathing.
Lucero said she called 911 and the baby was rushed to the hospital, but "there was nothing that they could do."
Four months after Maliah's death, an autopsy revealed Maliah died from head and neck injuries. Lucero said it took even longer to learn her daughter died at the hands of Aragon and that it wasn't the first time had been involved in something like this.
Lucero said she had done a few background checks on Aragon when they started dating, but there was nothing that showed his previous child abuse conviction. She said Aragon told her he had been only previously arrested for drug-related offenses.
"I didn’t know that it was what it was," Lucero said. "I didn’t know about the child abuse. I wouldn’t have somebody like that around my children at all."
Lucero said if she had known about the prior conviction, she would've been able to protect her daughter and Maliah would likely would have never been killed.
In February of 2018, Lucero started researching ways to help people learn exactly who in Colorado is a convicted child abuser.
"I posted on Facebook one day and said, ‘Hey, if I was to propose Maliah’s Law which would make child abusers be obligated to register like sex offenders, who would back me up?’" Lucero said. "It went ballistic from there."
With help from a few Colorado lawmakers, Lucero created a proposal for a piece of legislation that would do just that.
"Anybody who’s been convicted of child abuse with any bodily injury would be obligated to register like sex offenders do," Lucero said. "So they would have limitations to where they couldn’t be around kids, they couldn't be around places and establishments with children."
Lucero said they've even created a color code system to classify how serious offenses are.
She said Maliah's Law would also allow a district attorney to "provide a full element disclosure to where [child abusers] can't get through loopholes and plead lesser charges to avoid registration."
Democratic Colorado State Representative Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez is one of the lawmakers helping Lucero.
"We plan to meet with child welfare advocates and human services policy experts to develop ideas that would help prevent these tragedies," a statement from Gonzales-Gutierrez's office to 9NEWS said. "Some of the proposals may be legislative, and others are not. We are still in the early stages of working with Alexis and key stakeholders to see how we can make an impact on preventing child abuse and how to move these ideas forward."
Though the creation of such a registry can't help Maliah now, Lucero hopes her daughter's name will one day be a reason other kids live.
"After we’re long gone, after our kids are long gone, her name’s still going to be around forever," Lucero said.
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