10-year-old girl ran to gas station to beg for help months before she was tortured to death by dad and girlfriend: Police

An Arizona miss who died aft she was allegedly abused by her father and stepmother reportedly ran distant from location to beg for assistance earlier her death.

Richard Baptiste and his woman Anicia Woods are some charged with first-degree murder, child abuse, and kid molestation successful transportation with the decease of his daughter, 10-year-old Rebekah Baptiste. As Law&Crime antecedently reported, Rebekah died connected July 28, 2025, a time aft Baptiste and Woods brought the unresponsive girl to a agrarian aesculapian halfway successful Arizona's Apache County. Doctors said the miss died of "non-accidental trauma," and Baptiste and Woods were arrested the time aft her death.

On Dec. 30, 2025, the Phoenix Police Department released a study from October 2024, months earlier Rebekah's death, that elaborate an effort by the miss to seek assistance from strangers aft she ran distant from home.

The October 2024 incidental was mentioned successful tribunal documents reviewed by Law&Crime. In the documents, authorities said that Rebekah "ran away" from location respective times, according to Baptiste and Woods. More details astir that incidental were made disposable successful the constabulary study released by the Phoenix Police Department obtained by section media.

Local CBS affiliate KPHO reported that connected Oct. 17, 2024, police responded to a telephone from Phoenix Children's Hospital, wherever Rebekah had been taken aft she ran to a state presumption and told the clerk moving determination that she "was being abused by her stepmother." According to the report, Rebekah told an serviceman that Woods "hit her connected her hands and feet with a brush."

During a tribunal proceeding successful September 2025, Apache County Sheriff's Office researcher Kole Soderquist testified that Rebekah had jumped retired of a second-story model to flight the home. Before she arrived astatine the state station, she recovered a stateless idiosyncratic and asked them for help, Soderquist said. When authorities questioned Baptiste and Woods, they said Rebekah's injuries were self-inflicted. The probe into Rebekah's accusations of kid maltreatment were closed.

More from Law&Crime: 'Laps and planks': Dad and woman killed 10-year-old miss aft torturing her with 'exercise arsenic punishment' and nary nutrient oregon water, DA says

Law&Crime antecedently reported that teachers alerted authorities to imaginable kid maltreatment against Rebekah and her 2 siblings respective times earlier the miss died. The 2 different children reportedly changed their stories to support Baptiste and Woods, according to prosecutors. All the children complained to teachers that Baptiste and Woods would allegedly punish them with "physical subject of laps and planks, and not being fed." The teachers noticed disposable "marks, scratches, oregon bruises" connected each the children.

At the clip of their arrest, Baptiste and Woods were being investigated for an alleged incidental successful May 2025.

Baptiste and Woods are some charged with first-degree murder, kid abuse, and kid molestation. They are presently awaiting proceedings successful Apache County.