(06-17) 04:00 PDT Turlock, Stanislaus County -- A 27-year-old grocery store worker who police say punched and kicked his 2-year-old son to death on a country road calmly told motorists who stopped at the scene that he had to "get the demons" out of the boy, two witnesses said Monday.
Sergio Casian Aguiar of Turlock told people who urged him to stop late Saturday that the boy was "trash," the witnesses said. He asked for a knife at one point and, at another, said, "Look how they make toys now."
And when a Modesto police officer jumped off a helicopter and ordered Aguiar to stop at gunpoint, he raised his middle finger and continued his attack.
Officer Jerry Ramar, standing in a cow pasture behind an electric fence, shot Aguiar once in the forehead, the witnesses and police said. Aguiar died at the scene.
"Good shot, thank God," said Deborah McKain, a 51-year-old resident of nearby Crows Landing who pulled up to the beating scene on a cracked two-lane road while on her way home from dinner in Turlock, 10 miles to the northeast. "That guy needed to die."
The reason a father with no criminal record would commit such a brutal killing was still a mystery on Monday. Authorities do not know whether Aguiar was drunk or on drugs, and toxicology reports on him and his son will not be available for three to four weeks, said sheriff's spokesman Deputy Royjindar Singh.
The boy was beaten so savagely that DNA tests will be needed to confirm his identity, Singh said. His name has not been released.
The crime shocked this agricultural community and stunned those who knew Aguiar and his wife, Frances, who had recently separated from her husband. She was in Southern California when her son was killed.
Police said Aguiar had never been arrested. He worked at the 24-hour FoodMaxx in Turlock, where a company spokesman described him as a good employee whose co-workers were traumatized by what happened.
At the Mulberry Mobile Park, where Aguiar, his wife and his son lived in a trailer for a few years before moving last year, manager Ronda Donner said she was "blown away."
"Nice, no trouble. Their rent was always paid on time," Donner said while pruning trees on the property, where mobile homes encircle a parched island of grass. "I'm still kind of shocked. He didn't seem like that kind of person."
His wife lives in a modest apartment in Turlock. A bicycle, tricycle and a toy car sat outside Monday. No one was home.
McKain, of Crows Landing, said she drove past Sergio Aguiar's pickup Saturday night on West Bradbury Road and, at first, thought he was "kicking garbage or something."
But she said her boyfriend, Dan Robinson, told her to back up and put her headlights on Aguiar.
"Sure enough, he was kicking a baby around," McKain said.
She said the child was unconscious, his clothes falling off, and looked liked a "rag doll." Robinson, a volunteer fire chief in Crows Landing, showed Aguiar his badge and ordered him to stop, but Aguiar calmly said something like, "It's just trash," McKain said.
Aguiar also said, "Look how they make toys now," McKain said, and at one point asked Robinson for a knife.
When Robinson went into the pickup to turn on the hazard lights, Aguiar stopped kicking the boy, helped him find the flashers, then went back to his attack, McKain said. She said there was blood in the truck's cab.
McKain said her son, her son's wife and her son's friend were also there, as were a woman and a man who pulled up in separate cars. She estimated that she saw Aguiar kick or stomp his son at least 100 times, but she said no one tried to stop him because he appeared to be dangerous. One fear was that "maybe he had something in his pocket," she said.
Also, McKain said, it was clear that "the baby was gone."
Another witness, 23-year-old Lisa Mota, said Aguiar "wasn't acting like a crazy person, running around or screaming. He said, 'I've just got to get the demons out of him.' He was very calm.' "
Mota said she went to a counselor Monday to talk about what she saw but wasn't ready to talk about it publicly.
"Even having witnessed it, I still can't believe it happened," she said. "I don't think it's ever going to leave my mind. For someone like me who is about to start a family, it's a fear that there's people out there like that - that even have the thought to kill a child."
The roadway was still stained with blood Monday, and one neighbor had attached a teddy bear to a nearby stop sign.
Singh said authorities received several 911 calls about the beating just after 10 p.m. Saturday, and that the first officers to arrive were aboard a Sheriff's Department helicopter that had been patrolling over Turlock. The pilot, a sheriff's deputy, and Ramar, the Modesto police officer, landed in a cow pasture just off the roadway about 10:19 p.m., Singh said.
Ramar jumped from the helicopter before it touched down, ran about 20 yards toward Aguiar and, while standing behind the pasture's fence, ordered him to stop beating the boy, Singh said.
McKain said Aguiar responded, "I'm not going to prison," and when he raised his middle finger, Ramar fired.
