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California Father Abandons 12-Year-Old Daughter at Desert Gas Station After Beating Wife to Death

A California man was ordered held without bail on Tuesday, charged with beating his wife to death and dumping her body on the side of a road, then abandoning his 12-year-old daughter at a Mojave Desert gas station.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office said it located Jesus Jaimes-Rosas, 37, about two hours after they were called to a Shell gas station convenience store on Friday night.

Ar 11:45 p.m., a 12-year-old girl walked into the store and asked for help. A California Highway Patrol officer was already nearby and contacted the child. When deputies from the Barstow station arrived, the girl told them that her father had beat her mother and left alongside the road. Then he “dropped the child off at the gas station and fled.”

Shortly before 1:30 a.m. Saturday, deputies found Jaimes-Rosas’s vehicle abandoned on a dirt road. A K-9 unit responded to the area and soon located the suspect with undescribed “self-inflicted injuries.” Deputies transported him to a hospital, where he was treated and then released back into their custody.

Hours later, shortly before noon, investigators found the body of 31-year-old Sonia Flores.

Jaimes-Rosas has been charged with Flores’s murder and is booked into the High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto.

Anyone with information is urged to call the sheriff’s Homicide Detail at (909) 890-4908.

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