Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
Virginia Gonzales Starves Daughter, Reverses Plead Deal Refusal, Learns Fate
28 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Guaranteed human. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Now here's a woman nobody will forget. I don't know if you're gonna remember her name, Virginia Gonzalez, but you'll remember this. The mom of multiple children, including a seven-year-old little girl, found locked in a dark closet that was barricaded down to about 26 pounds, fed one corn dog a day, if that. I'm Nancy Grace.
This is Crime Stories.
I want to thank you for being with us. On April 3rd, 2025, Austin Police Department responded to a 911 call for a seven-year-old child that was found locked in a closet and starving. The seven-year-old was immediately taken to a local hospital for medical treatment and is currently recovering. There were six other children found in the home that appeared physically healthy.
Police officers at an Austin apartment find a severely malnourished 7-year-old girl who is barricaded in a bedroom closet. The child is found soiled, weighing just 29 pounds, and has been confined to a 3-foot by 2-foot closet space for approximately a month. Investigators find the child has been given one corndog and a half a cup of water a day.
Doctors at Dell Children's Medical Center determine the little girl is suffering moderate to severe cerebral atrophy from prolonged malnutrition, damage from which she will never recover.
Virginia Gonzalez facing charges including injury to a child, inflicting serious injury, learns her fate in court.
The mother accused of locking her young daughter in a closet for weeks initially refused a plea deal. but now one has been reached. 33-year-old Virginia Gonzalez pleaded guilty to two charges of felony child injury. She receives a 25-year sentence on each count, which she will serve at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice facility in Huntsville. The counts will serve concurrently.
Let me jog your memory about what happened.
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Chapter 2: What happened to the 7-year-old girl found locked in a closet?
They took her, of course, to the hospital where she weighed 29 pounds. And medical personnel say that because of the prolonged starvation of that little girl, that she will have permanent brain damage.
Permanent brain damage caused by starvation. Joining me, Virginia Bagby, director of Child Help National Child Abuse Hotline. Child Help. Virginia, thank you for being with us. Many people don't know that starving a child can result in permanent brain damage. Have you ever seen anything like it before, Virginia?
We have definitely heard about cases like this and they happen all too often.
Dr. Kendall Crowns, Chief Medical Examiner, Tarrant County, that's Fort Worth, never a lack of business. He is the esteemed lecturer at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. I know that you heard this, but let me repeat it again. A seven-year-old little girl barricaded in a locked bedroom closet, locked from the outside, soiled, a seven-year-old weighing just 29 pounds,
confined to a three by two foot closet. She has been given at most one corn dog and a half cup of water a day. She is now suffering permanent moderate to severe cerebral
atrophy from prolonged malnutrition the doc states she will never recover could you interpret that please certainly so she's not being given much food or water i mean a corn dog and a cup of water is not much for a child or anybody for that matter her body is losing its uh depleting its muscle depleting its fat stores so she her muscles are wasting away her bones are starting to
not formed properly and she's being starved and part of being starved results in your cardiac muscle or your heart muscle mass starting to also fade away or go away which reduces your heart's ability to pump your blood which results in your kidneys failing and you go into kidney failure You also start having gut issues as well.
And this can all affect your brain and your brain's development, especially in a child. So all those factors combined will result in her having these issues that the doctors are describing.
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Chapter 3: How did the police discover the other children in the home?
Dr. General Crowns, a child of seven years old should weigh around 70 pounds, 40, 45 to 70 pounds. Is that right?
Yes. That would be about the average weight of a child at seven.
A seven-year-old average, of course, they grow at different weights. The average is 51 pounds for a seven-year-old child, but it ranges from 43 to 70. So where would you place 29 pounds? In that spectrum, 29 pounds. If a seven-year-old can weigh up to 73, she's not even half the weight of a seven-year-old.
Yeah. The weight you're describing is a severely malnourished child. So she's been starved for a prolonged period of time. How does that make a child brain damaged?
It's from the body shutting down, the lack of food, the lack of loss of muscle mass, the heart muscle mass being lost, it not circulating properly, the organs aren't getting enough oxygenated blood, and of course the brain's part of this. So the brain's not getting proper oxygenation. Also, the brain relies on glucose or sugars to grow and develop, and it's not getting that as well.
So the brain is basically maldeveloped, not getting enough oxygen. So you get brain damage.
Dr. Crowns, isn't it true that a child weighing 29 pounds typically, and I'm basing this on charts and statistics that I prepared, is typically a 22-month-old child at 29 pounds?
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Chapter 4: What medical conditions did the 7-year-old girl suffer from due to starvation?
Yes, that would be correct.
A 7-year-old little girl, Dr. Kendall Crowns, that should weigh 71 pounds, 51 to 71 pounds, weighs 29 pounds. With a child starving, what would she be enduring on the floor of that locked closet, Dr. Crowns?
She would be enduring confusion, dehydration, or a very dry mouth. Her throat would be dry. She'd have trouble swallowing. She'd be very tired and just not able to even move. And then you would add on to that the fact that Without the food, she'd start hallucinating and then eventually just slip into a coma and finally die.
Chapter 5: What charges is Virginia Gonzales facing and what was her plea deal?
Dr. Kendall Crowns, would the child lose her hair? I know that she's losing all muscle tone. Would she be losing her hair? Would her faculties, her hearing, her sight, would that be intact? And what would her brain function be lying on the floor of a dark closet, starving?
So, yes, hair often will fall out in individuals who are starved. her brain function would be very minimal. She'd be confused, even possibly hallucinating, and just completely fatigued and not even feeling like moving.
Is it true, Dr. Kimmel-Kraus, that when someone has been starved for a prolonged period of time, as in this case, when you give them food, they can't even eat it?
Yes, you can have what is called, if you give a person who's been starved, you feed them too quickly, you can have what is called refeed
Chapter 6: Why did Virginia Gonzales reverse her initial rejection of the plea deal?
where they actually will, from the food intake, it will cause so much of a shock to their body that they can die.
Guys, when police show up to a home, they find six children and then a seventh locked in a closet. weighing just 29 pounds. But ironically, amazingly, listen to the condition of the other six children.
Six other children in the apartment ranging in age from two to 14 years old are found to be in apparently good physical condition. The apartment's pantry, refrigerator, and freezer are stocked with various food items. The oldest children were given strict orders to put the little girl in the closet because she had bladder control issues and she was trying to eat things she wasn't supposed to.
During the investigation, police learned there's an eighth child, Ava Marie, who is not in the home with the other children.
We've got one starved child who has permanent brain damage, a seven-year-old little girl weighing 29 pounds locked in a closet. Now I've got a missing child, too. But to Dr. Angela Arnold, joining me, renowned psychiatrist out of the Atlanta jurisdiction at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Dr. Angie, thank you for being with us. Did you hear what was just reported?
That there were six other children in the home seemingly healthy, and they were encouraged to keep the little girl locked in a closet, starving her. because the little girl would eat things she wasn't supposed to eat. You know what, Dr. Angie, I've heard every excuse in the book about why parents starve the children. Oh, the child ate a candy bar. I'll starve it. The child eats too much.
I'll starve it. The child misbehaved. I'll starve it. I mean, there are a million excuses I have heard as to why moms and dads starve the baby dead. But yet we see six other children seemingly healthy. And this is oftentimes what we do see in cases like this, Nancy.
So the other children need to be taken care of as well as this goes on because they have been suffering something called Stockholm Syndrome. They want to ā they are so scared of the abuse that they see being heaped on this other child that they go into it with their mother literally to protect themselves. Okay? Because, Nancy, imagine how scared these other children are.
They never know who's going to be next to be locked in that closet. So they're going to listen to their mama. They're going to do what she says. And I think that they could probably also psychologically sort of break off from feeling towards the child that is being locked in the closet so that they can protect themselves. Because this is chaos that this family is living in.
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Chapter 7: How did the other children in the household contribute to the situation?
Virginia Gonzalez stands next to a lawyer in court and says guilty. The mom of multiple children, including a seven-year-old little girl, found locked in a dark closet that was barricaded down to about 26 pounds, fed one corn dog a day. If that... A 10-year-old brother told police he was told he had to clean the closet because the little sister would have to defecate and urinate in the closet.
Now, in court, Virginia Gonzalez states, I instructed them not to let her out of the bedroom but not the closet. So she would basically blame the other children. Quote, we'd catch her in the restroom doing something bad. What? What would she be doing in the bathroom at seven years old? Quote, it was easier for my sons to watch her that way. Well, what were you doing?
Why would you leave a 10-year-old boy in charge of six other children? Text messages uncover. Gonzalez texting one of her children. Quote, clean the closet, then throw her back in. In the affidavit we obtained, the detective describes the child as the fat in her cheeks was non-existent. Her body had used those stores to sustain itself. What more do we know?
A shocking discovery inside a home leads police to investigate a long-buried secret.
Okay, Leah Marie is joining us, a friend of the mom, Virginia Gonzalez. Ms. Marie, thank you, because what you've just said Could save a child's life. Yes, ma'am. However, do you know, Leanne, is the ninth child older, younger, girl, boy?
It's a boy, and he is around age 9 to 10 years old. So she has a 14, an 11, a 10, a 9, a 7. I know she has two three-year-olds, the newborn. So there's nine from what I'm hearing right now.
Okay, hold on. Let me add this up.
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Chapter 8: What implications does this case have for child welfare and protection?
There's a 14-year-old, an 11-year-old, a 10-year-old. A nine-year-old is the boy that you think...
is missing um a seven-year-old is a little girl starved in the closet two three-year-olds okay one two three four five six seven eight i'm missing somebody fourteen eleven ten nine three and three and a newborn what now so ava's around eight nine years old and then the little boy is right after her 11 months difference
You stated that Virginia Gonzalez, the mother of the starving little girl and the other missing girl, was, quote, normal, would go partying at the clubs and the bars. Hey, I don't have a problem with that. Party down, mommy. But. Would she ever mention who was taking care of the children while she's at the bar?
So from what we understand was that the kids, all the kids, were left with the grandmother of... She has three kids that belong to one father. And that was who she was with the past seven years. And so they were supposedly all living with the grandmother.
Okay. Dr. Angie Arnold, I need a shrink because... Why is she out on a boat partying while her child is starving in a closet and two children are missing?
Right. And Nancy, how can she just be so unattached from all of these children that she's having? So my question is, why is she having all of these children? And I'm sorry, is it to support her lifestyle? And where are the fathers of these children? We always have to ask, why isn't the mother taking care of them? Okay, yes, she is a
horrible person that has done horrible things to at least two of her children that we know about. Where are the fathers of these children and why aren't any of them involved? But Nancy, I don't believe she should be out partying on a boat. I think that when you have children, you should be at home taking care of your children and not relying on someone else to take care of them. Because again,
We don't know how children take that, but oftentimes when mothers are not around, children do sense a fear of abandonment when their mother is not taking care of them.
But to Bronwyn Blake joining us, adjunct professor, University of Texas School of Law. Bronwyn. I'm not the church lady. If mom wants to party, go ahead. If mom wants to vape and smoke, have at it. The issue is intent. When she is out partying in her club and bar finery, her child is at home starving and two of them are missing. Now that goes to intent.
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