Warrants detail case against Tarrant County mom arrested on 9 medical child abuse charges
A 40-year-old Tarrant County woman accused of subjecting her child to unneeded procedures has been arrested on medical child abuse charges.
Denise Zamora is accused of intentionally falsifying her daughter’s medical history and her own medical history, the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office said in a Thursday, Dec. 19, news release.
“The false history led to unnecessary and potentially harmful medical procedures over the course of a six-year period,” the release states.
Zamora claimed her daughter was non-verbal and could not communicate, according to the Sheriff’s Office. She faces nine felony charges, including one count of serious bodily injury to a child, one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, three counts of injury to a child, and four counts of endangering a child.
One of the charges is connected to the unnecessary administration of the anesthetic Ketamine and pain treatments that caused the victim to become dependent, the Sheriff’s Office said.
On Nov. 25, Detective Michael Weber with the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office was contacted by a nurse at Cook Children’s Medical Center about the suspected case of medical child abuse. The nurse said Zamora was seen on covert surveillance video putting an unknown substance in her daughter’s feeding bag, according to Zamora’s arrest warrant affidavits.
The camera also caught Zamora taking formula out of the feeding bag, placing it in a vomit bag and telling medical personnel her 15-year-old daughter had thrown up, the nurse told the detective. According to the affidavits obtained by the Star-Telegram, the nurse stated something similar had happened in 2018 when the victim had been using a nasal gastric tube insert to help with feeding. Hospital personnel began to suspect medical child abuse at that time.
The victim’s doctor told investigators that Zamora controlled all communication between medical staff and her daughter. According to the affidavits, Zamora said the victim was deaf and didn’t understand sign language. Every time the victim was asked a question, she would look to her mother to answer, authorities said.
Zamora also told medical personnel that her daughter was experiencing heavy menstrual bleeding, but nurses were unable to find any evidence of this and the victim’s hemoglobin levels remained normal, according to the affidavits.
When asked about her daughter’s medical history, Zamora said her daughter began vomiting frequently and experiencing trouble swallowing in 2017. Doctors inserted a gastric feeding tube, which involved cutting into the girl’s stomach to place the tube, the affidavits state. The suspect said her daughter hadn’t undergone any reflux testing before the tube was put in place, according to the documents.
Zamora also told investigators her daughter had been diagnosed with Von-Hippel Lindau syndrome, a rare genetic condition that causes tumors to grow throughout the body.
She initially denied tampering with the victim’s feeding bag and putting formula in the vomit bag, according to the affidavits.
After being confronted with the video evidence, she changed her story to say it was the first time she had falsified her daughter’s medical condition, the documents state. When Detective Weber asked her why, Zamora said she lived with several family members and didn’t want to go home because of friction in the family.
The victim’s teachers told the investigator that she suddenly began using a wheelchair at school. They said she missed a lot of school due to medical issues, but was one of the brightest children in the class for those with hearing impairments, according to the affidavits. The victim never reported having any seizures or headaches at school, contrary to what Zamora had said.
Another school staff member told investigators that Zamora indicated her daughter was going to have major surgery during the summer of 2024, but medical personnel said that was false. The only medical procedures she had were Botox injections, according to the affidavit.
Teachers also said Zamora told them she herself had uterine cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy, the affidavits state. When the detective asked Zamora about her cancer diagnosis and indicated he would contact John Peter Smith Hospital for her records, she said she only had precancerous cells. She was shaving her head because “she believes she has cancer,” according to the affidavits.
When Zamora was separated from her daughter for a time, medical personnel discovered that the teen was able to communicate proficiently in sign language. She was also able to have some verbal communication, according to the affidavits. In spite of her mother’s assertions that she had been exclusively on a feeding tube since 2017, the victim told her caregivers that she ate Mexican food, hot dogs and candy at home.
She began to eat solid food without any problems during the separation from her mother, and could walk on her own without the use of the wheelchair, the court documents state. She indicated she wasn’t in any pain and did not need the pain medications she had been given.
Medical experts told the investigator that giving pain medication to a 15-year-old who wasn’t experiencing pain could cause drowsiness and lightheadedness. The victim said she got dizzy once when her mother requested pain medicine for her that she didn’t need, according to the affidavits.
The investigator also learned that the Botox injections the victim received were for migraine headaches, and the doctor would not have recommended them if she had known the teen wasn’t really experiencing migraines. In addition, doctors indicated that using a wheelchair when not needed could lead to back pain and leg weakness, the affidavits state. The Von-Hippel Lindau syndrome that the victim had been diagnosed with would not cause the seizures, vomiting, pain, leg weakness or need for a wheelchair that Zamora had said her daughter was experiencing, the doctors said.
Zamora was not able to explain why her daughter only had certain symptoms at home and not at school, according to the affidavits. She also denied that doctors had told her the daughter didn’t need a wheelchair.
In addition to the other child abuse charges, the suspect has been charged with serious bodily injury to a child for the unnecessary insertion of the feeding tube, according to the affidavit.
There is also potential for Medicaid fraud charges against Zamora involving $500,000 to $1 million in unnecessary medical treatments, the Sheriff’s Office release states.
Investigators suspect Zamora may have solicited donations for herself and her child’s medical expenses, officials said. Any person or organization who has donated to Zamora is asked to contact Detective Michael Weber at 817-884-3749.
Zamora’s bond has been set at $50,000. It’s unclear whether she has obtained an attorney.
This story was originally published December 19, 2024 at 12:51 PM.
