Child abuse alleged in former isle boy's death

A 4-year-old boy who was born and raised in Hawaii was killed in Las Vegas last week, the victim of alleged child abuse.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper reported that doctors who autopsied Brandon Kai Tomoria-Lamug said his organs were damaged, his head cut and bruised, and the lobes of his brain were covered with blood clots, injuries more commonly seen when someone is hit by a car going 60 mph, one doctor told police.

The boy's stepfather, 23-year-old Luis Ortega, was scheduled to appear at Justice Court in Las Vegas this morning. He was arrested Friday, according to the Clark County Detention Center, where he is being held without bond on a charge of murder by child abuse.

A police report quoted in the newspaper said the boy's mother, Bernadeth Tomoria-Lamug, told investigators that she left her son with Ortega at their apartment for an hour to go to the store on Dec. 12 and came home to find her son complaining of stomach pain. She went to get him juice, and when she returned he had stopped breathing.

"(Ortega) could provide no reasonable explanation as to how Brandon suffered his injuries" and denied having anything to do with them, according to the arrest report.

The boy's father, Blake Lamug, told KITV yesterday that the boy had moved to Las Vegas with his mother about a year ago. He had just visited his family and cousins in Aiea this summer and the family had Christmas presents waiting for him, KITV reported.