DENHAM SPRINGS — A 10-year-old boy from Denham Springs, who was missing for over 24 hours, was found Monday evening hiding under a mobile home next door to where he lived. The boy, Brody Sturdivant, had run away from home, according to his guardian, after being punished and his PlayStation was taken from him.
A neighbor to the family, Russell Bishop, spoke to UWK and described how he helped find Brody under his family’s mobile home. He says he has known the family for many years, and he and his wife bring gifts to Brody and his older sister sometimes for holidays, he said.
“There was a bottle of water missing, my wife’s cigarettes came up missing, and we had searched it many times. I went back there one time and found some broken cigarettes and one of them was lit backwards,” Bishop recalled. He says he got one of the deputies, who had been in the neighborhood Monday, and showed her the items that had not been there previously.
She told additional deputies to come to the home and when they arrived, that’s when he says they found Brody.
“They crawled underneath there, and he was in the very back,” Bishop said. “He was in between two of the cinder blocks that hold the trailer.”
Mandi Pearson recalled to UWK the circumstances that caused Brody to run away. Pearson is a guardian and aunt to Brody and his siblings.
Pearson said she overheard Brody swearing at the man who adopted him, or his “dad,” who is disabled with severe COPD, and calling him names so she fussed at Brody about respecting his dad. She said that he wouldn’t be able to play on the PlayStation and brought it to her son’s bedroom.
“He thought it was the end of the world when I took the PlayStation,” Pearson said.
She also talked to Brody about the fact that he was caught with a vape pen that he had found on the road. Brody admitted to having the pen and said he would bring it to her. Instead, she says he took the opportunity to dash off and hide in the yard, which he has done in the past.
Pearson said Brody continued to run and hide until he disappeared in a neighbor’s yard.
According to Pearson, Brody has not been officially diagnosed with autism at this time, but has been diagnosed with ADHD and comorbidities.
“We’re just happy he’s back, and there’s nothing wrong with him,” Pearson said. “He might have a couple scrapes on his knee, but that’s it. And, you know, he was really sleepy and hungry, of course, and somebody gave a McDonald’s in the ambulance (when he was going to be checked out).”
She said she is beyond grateful for the community and law enforcement support in getting Brody back home.
Pearson’s daughter alleges abuse
Liliana Bonilla-Velasquez, now 20 years old, is one of Pearson’s two daughters and said problems have been going on in the home for a long time. She says she hopes that by telling her story, Brody and his siblings will have the chance to have a better life.
Although they are cousins, she said Brody looks at her like an aunt and he is like her nephew.
Bonilla-Velasquez said her mother beat her multiple times as a young child and accused her mother of doing things like tying her up with duct tape, making her eat her own vomit, going through virginity checks, and locking her up in a Tuff shed outside for several hours at a time during the heat of the day.
One time, she says she was punished from wearing makeup. Bonilla-Velasquez put some on at school. One day, before she could wash the mascara off, she said she was caught and Pearson flipped out.
“She cut all of my eyelashes off, top and bottom set. Just cut them all off and told me, ‘Now I have to go to school looking like this because I didn’t want to obey her’,” Bonilla-Velasquez recalled.
Both she and her sister Rosa were removed from the home for over a year, she said. The girls lived with their grandmother during that time but were later brought back home.
“The abuse stopped because I was living with my momo, and she loved me. She babied me a lot, and I lost her too early, because she was the only one who ever showed me that kind of love besides my husband now,” Bonilla-Velasquez said. “It hurt so bad the day they brought us back.”
She said that at the time, she told child protective services that her mother was sick in the head, and “she does bad things.”
“You know that I still love her, but she’s not okay,” she added.
Pearson has been arrested a few times in the past in Livingston Parish, however, the charges were rejected by the District Attorney’s office. The charges, that date back to 2012 and 2019, were for minor offenses and unrelated to child abuse, according to credible sources.
She told UWK that Pearson says that Bonilla-Velasquez has schizophrenia, but that is not true. She said that she has actually been diagnosed with C-PTSD, depression and anxiety due to the alleged abuses of her childhood.
She believes that Brody is just misunderstood and does not have mental illness, as she felt her mother implied in an interview aired on Monday.
After turning 18, Bonilla-Velasquez said she was finally able to leave the home after a first attempt where the family brought her back.
Pearson’s response
Mandi Pearson disputes what Bonilla-Velasquez says. When asked by UWK, Pearson denied the allegations of making Bonilla-Velasquez eat her own vomit, tying her up with duct tape, performing virginity checks, and leaving her outside in the shed, among other allegations.
Pearson said Bonilla-Velasquez has had issues with schizophrenia since toddler-age, but doctors would not diagnose the condition until age 17. She said after diagnosis, her daughter was on multiple medications that once she left home at 18, she abruptly stopped.
As a caregiver to her own brother (Brody’s dad) and mother/guardian, Pearson said she tries to help her family stay together. She is upset about Bonilla-Velasquez’s statements but also said this is part of her condition.
However, she also wants her daughter to get better and seek help.
“I love my children,” Pearson said.
When DCFS removed Bonilla-Velasquez and her sister from the home, Pearson said it was for six months, not over a year as her daughter said. She added that her mother, the grandmother, had bipolar disorder and tended to manipulate Bonilla-Velasquez, who was the grandchild she favored most.
UWK reached out to the Department of Child and Family Services for any information on this case, but before publication on Oct. 29, no one responded. A spokesperson with DCFS responded on the afternoon of Oct. 30 that due to the state’s confidentiality laws, the department cannot comment on or acknowledge a potential investigation of abuse or neglect involving a child.
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