During the six or seven months their romantic relationship lasted, Andrea Burlado never feared for her daughter. It wasn’t the first time her boyfriend had bathed her, nor the first time he had been alone with her. That’s why, almost two months after Leyre, a 14-month-old baby, suffered burns to nearly 60% of her body while her mother’s then-partner was washing her in a home in Bormujos (Seville), the young woman is wondering what really happened in those few minutes inside the bathroom that ultimately led to the minor’s death.
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None of the explanations she received that Holy Monday have managed to clear her doubts. On the contrary. As the weeks passed, Andrea became convinced that what happened to her daughter “was not an accident” and points to “jealousy” as a possible trigger. “If it had been an accident, my girl would have burned an arm, a little hand. Not her corneas. My girl was left without eyelids. Hair was not going to grow back on her head,” she recounts with a broken voice.
Leyre passed away last Friday after remaining almost two months hospitalized in the Critical Care Unit of Hospital Virgen del Rocío and undergoing six surgical interventions. It was in that hospital where the child abuse suspicion protocol was activated from the first moment. Now, the investigation has passed into the hands of the National Police’s Homicide Group, while the family has appeared as a private prosecution in a case that seeks to clarify what happened during that bath that left the little girl seriously injured.
That same day he was very strange. He wouldn’t look me in the face. We had argued a few days before”
Andrea Burlado
Mother of Leyre, the deceased baby in Seville
Andrea points to her then-partner, although she admits that during the months they lived together, she never had reason to think he could harm the child. “There was no problem with my daughter. It wasn’t the first time he had bathed her. When I went to work, he stayed with her and took care of her,” she explains. However, there are details from that day that she now analyzes differently. “This happened on a Holy Monday. That same day he was very strange. He wouldn’t look me in the face. We had argued a few days before,” she recalls. Now she believes there might have been something more behind what happened.
“I think he might have done it out of jealousy. Out of jealousy towards the care I dedicated to my daughter,” she maintains. She also mentions the misgivings he showed, according to her account, towards the relationship she maintained with the child’s biological father.
The sequence of that afternoon remains etched in her memory. Andrea recalls asking her then-partner to bathe the child while she finished preparing some things. He entered the bathroom with the little one and closed the door. Only a few minutes had passed when she heard the first cry. “Within two or three minutes, he came out to tell me that the child had been burned,” she recounts.
The explanation he gave her doesn’t convince her either. According to his version, he claimed he had stepped out for a moment to grab a towel. “He says it was an accident. That he went out to get a towel. But everything in my bathroom is within reach,” she asserts. “Besides, it’s a shower tray, not a bathtub. My girl couldn’t even walk.” Since that day, she has not had contact with him again.
The young woman admits that during the relationship there were disagreements about the way her partner raised his own son. “I didn’t like the way he parented his son. I didn’t like many of his attitudes,” she explains.
Despite this, she insists that she never detected aggressive behavior towards Leyre. Now she shares the same conviction as her mother and the family’s lawyer: that what happened that afternoon was not accidental.
The family’s lawyer indicates that the evidence “suggests it was intentional”
The judicial investigation remains open. Investigators await the autopsy results and new proceedings to determine what happened in those minutes inside the bathroom of a home in Bormujos. Andrea’s ex-partner already testified while the minor was hospitalized and is expected to reappear soon. For now, he is free and no precautionary measures have been taken against him.
Meanwhile, the mother continues to try to find an explanation for what happened to her daughter. Andrea demands that the investigation go all the way and that the facts, which she is convinced were not an accident, be clarified. All she asks for now is justice for Leyre.
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