Civil documents detail alleged abuse of Lakewood shooter's child

ByKevin Ozebek and Sarah Rafique KTRK logo

Monday, February 19, 2024

Civil documents detail alleged abuse of Lakewood shooter Genesse Moreno's child

13 Investigates has learned the 7-year-old boy of the Lakewood shooter endured alleged trauma and abuse well before last Sunday's service.

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The son of the Lakewood Church shooter has spent this past week overcoming a bullet wound to his head, all while police still try to figure out why his mom, Genesse Moreno, brought him and her AR-15 into the church last Sunday.

Now, 13 Investigates has learned the 7-year-old boy endured alleged trauma and abuse well before last Sunday's service.

Civil court documents we obtained paint a picture of a life that was born into misery.

Moreno's son, who we are not naming to protect his privacy, entered the world allegedly with drugs already in his blood, according to court filings, which indicate from there the troubles for the little boy only got worse.

"She put my grandson in harm's way for seven years," the boy's paternal grandmother, Walli Carranza, said in an interview with ABC13.

In court documents, Carranza alleges delivery doctors and nurses told her Moreno "likely induced her own labor at 23 weeks" and caused her grandson to be an "extreme micro-preemie" with "profound developmental delays."

Carranza claims Moreno then lied on the baby's birth certificate.

"She falsified all the documents saying that the father, the married father of the child, was dead and that she didn't know who he was," Carranza told us in an interview.

Walli's son, Enrique Carranza, who's serving time in Florida for failing to register as a sex offender, filed his own affidavit in 2022 saying, "from day one she had told my son I hate him and do not love him, using him to hurt me like it's a game."

In court documents, Carranza alleges that when her grandson was five, he was "nonverbal, tube-fed and not toilet trained."

She said Moreno was caught "adding pills" and "adult cold syrup" into her son's feeding tube, with Moreno allegedly saying "this is the only way I can get him to sleep."

Carranza said her grandson's feeding tube was only "supposed to be in place for 2-3 weeks" but was in "place for three years."

And when her grandson was 3 years old, Carranza said the boy handed her a gun from Moreno's diaper bag.

"My greatest fear was that (the boy) was going to find one of her many guns and kill himself," Carranza told us.

13 Investigates obtained a 911 call Moreno made in February 2022 after an argument she said she was having with Enrique Carranza.

During a call, you can hear a child in the background as Moreno tells the 911 call taker, "I have guns in my house ... so now I am just, like, reporting this to you guys because if he comes over here, I am shooting him."

In 2022, Walli Carranza said in a court filing that she was working in France and her son Enrique was in Florida sick with a COVID-19 when a Montgomery County judge ruled Moreno is to remain the little boy's primary caregiver.

Two years later, the now seven-year-old boy was with Moreno as she started a gunfight inside Lakewood Church and was taken down by two off-duty officers.

The Carranzas say Child Protective Services knew of Moreno, even claiming in civil documents that a CPS case worker once said, "until she shoots someone one" or her child shoots someone "there is nothing more we can do."

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services tells us it is investigating the shooting alongside the Houston Police Department and the FBI.

"At this time, DFPS cannot provide additional information because specific details of investigations are confidential according to law," said Texas DFPS spokesperson Melissa Lanford.

Dr. Bob Sanborn, President and CEO of Children at Risk, said the state often errs on the side of leaving children with their parents, especially if it doesn't have a safe placement to put the child if removed.

"In my mind, it was clear here that there was abuse of a sort going on, but I think because of the overtaxed system, because of sort of the 'live and let live' mentality that we have in the State of Texas, CPS is much more likely to leave kids with their parents," Sanborn said. "Many times that works out for parents. Sometimes it doesn't work out for the kids and so do we, in hindsight, think this child should have been taken away from these parents, from this mom? Absolutely."

Children at Risk is an advocacy group that focuses on making sure there are systems in place statewide that work for children, so every child can be successful, Sanborn said.

"We probably would not be talking about this had this not happened on Super Bowl Sunday, had it not happened at a big megachurch ... if it weren't happening in such a public way. But what we can only hope is that the takeaway is that we demand more of our leaders that this system needs to work for kids," Sanborn said. "It's a prime example of how the system is failing our kids and there will be people that say, 'well, it's up to the parents.' Well, you know what? For those kids, if you don't have the right parent, the state has to stand up for you. In Texas, the state is not necessarily standing up for every child."

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