Four children in Kapolei were limited to 8 ounces of water per day and paltry amounts of food despite full cupboards before one of them, 3-year-old Sarai Perez-Rivera, was found dead last year.
Now Sarai’s mother and her partner have been arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder. Janae Perez and Ashleigh Utley also face a host of other charges in Sarai’s death and the alleged abuse of the three other children.
Sarai Perez-Rivera was found unresponsive at her Kapolei home in June. Now her mother and the mother’s partner have been arrested. At a press conference late Thursday, Honolulu Police Department Lt. Deena Thoemmes said the children — ages 6, 5, 3 and 2 — had been beaten by Perez and Utley with hands, sticks and paddles. After Sarai was found unresponsive at the Kapolei house, two of the other children were admitted to the hospital suffering from extreme dehydration.
The girl’s grandmother last year told Civil Beat that she had tried to alert the state’s Child Welfare Services after noticing how skinny Sarai had become.
“I did see something. I did say something,” Sarai’s grandmother said. “But the problem is that it didn’t matter. It didn’t work because no one listened.”
Two weeks later, Perez emailed a different relative to say that the CWS investigation had been closed.
Perez texted the relative a photo of a shelf full of soup and other canned food and asked the relative to tell her mother, Sarai’s grandmother, that she had been cleared by CWS.
“Oh you can let her know btw because I’ve blocked her on everything that the case was closed for her invalid accusations to Cws,” Perez wrote.
Police recovered video from the home the day of Sarai’s death showing Perez carrying the girl, who appeared to be motionless. Other videos show the children barricaded in their rooms with furniture and gates, crying that they had to use the bathroom or were thirsty.
Perez responded by swearing and yelling at the children, Thoemmes said.
The couple attributed Sarai’s injuries to the aggression of her 5-year-old sibling. But police say the boy had nothing to do with it, and was himself a victim.
The two older children had been pulled out of school in 2023, but their mother could show no evidence that she home-schooled them or that they did the required year-end assessments, Thoemmes said.
The Honolulu Medical Examiner found that Sarai had died of the combined effects of starvation and dehydration.
“Their Kapolei residence possessed sufficient food to feed their children, but they chose not to,” Thoemmes said.
Civil Beat reported on Sarai’s death last year after obtaining a heavily redacted report from a team of experts about the circumstances. Emergency responders found the girl on June 13 after being called to the home.
The almost 4-year-old girl was severely underweight and had bruises at different stages of healing on her lower legs, left thigh, back and trunk, as well as a “massive” bruise on her left hip and abdomen.
Sarai Perez-Rivera died from a combination of dehydration and malnutrition.Eighteen minutes after arriving at the hospital, she was pronounced dead. The experts, known as a multidisciplinary team, found that she had suffered from extreme pain, mental distress and exposure to domestic violence.
She had been deprived of food, clothing, medical care and education, the panel found, and she had been given dangerous drugs.
Her grandmother — who asked not to be named to protect her other children — told Civil Beat that after her initial report, she had implored a different CWS worker on two occasions to check on Sarai and her three siblings. She said the social worker told her to try the hotline again.
A few weeks later, Sarai’s biological father called to say that the girl was dead.
