A young child in Missouri witnessed a truly horrific event. The young child had to be the one to call 911 when allegedly hearing their father, Felipe Ayala III, savagely beat their mother. At first, the woman was crying out, begging for her life as she was being bludgeoned in the head with a hammer. Soon, as the child cried to the 911 dispatcher, the woman’s screams and pleas slowed down. And then they stopped. As the child waited for the police to arrive, the child’s mother was already dead.
Thankfully, police arrested Ayala at the scene, and he is facing murder charges. But that doesn’t erase the trauma the child and their siblings have experienced.
Officers from the Springfield Police Department responded to a report of domestic assault around 11:20 p.m. January 7, 2026, Ozarks First reported. When authorities arrived, they found one person already dead. The suspect was also at the scene and arrested. On January 8, the victim was identified as 47-year-old Suzette Flores.
The Greene County prosecutor filed a charge of first-degree murder against Ayala, KY3 reported. A judge did not issue a bond. According to the report, investigators said a neighbor heard a woman scream “Please stop,” from inside the house. The neighbor then reportedly saw a man beating something in the garage.
Investigators said one of the couple’s sons noticed Flores’ behavior had recently changed.
A probable cause affidavit obtained by Law & Crime gave more details about the 911 call from the couple’s child. “I need somebody my dad is hitting my mother, I need a police officer,” the boy said during the call. “I do not know what he is doing to my momma. I hear banging, she is not yelling or nothing anymore. It is just quiet. I do not hear her anymore. I do not know what he did to her.”
Police said the child told the dispatcher “he is very scared” and began to cry. When he made the call, he said he was “right by the garage.”
“They have been doing this forever and I am tired of it,” the boy said as police were being dispatched, per Law & Crime. “I think my dad is coming,” he continued. “Are they on the way ma’am? I am very scared ma’am.”
The child said that before the incident, Ayala had been wielding a knife and “kept believing people were out to get him.” The couple began fighting and arguing in the garage before the child saw reportedly Ayala choke Flores and hit her in the head.
“You made me do this,” Ayala allegedly said as he attacked Flores. According to the affidavit, Ayala called the three children in the home into the garage. “Ayala looked at him and the other juveniles in the home saying they were next,” the affidavit read.
A neighbor told police that the apparent beating lasted 15 to 20 minutes, the affidavit stated. Investigators asked the neighbor to reenact what he saw Ayala do to Flores, Law & Crime reported. He started “making a downward motion from above his shoulder … consistent with a hammering motion,” the affidavit noted.
A GoFundMe account was created for Flores’ children as well as funeral costs. “Suzette was a unique soul, full of love and laughter,” the fundraiser read. “She loved hard and wanted nothing but a good life for her and her boys.
“In a most unfortunate turn of events, her life was taken suddenly and viciously,” the description continued. “She was robbed of the chance to watch her babies and grand babies grow, and they were robbed of a life with their mother and grandmother.”
