A 12-year-old Primera girl endured months of sexual abuse before breaking her silence.
And now, a man her family trusted is behind bars for doing the unthinkable.
Primera Police Chief Manuel Treviño said he believes sexual abuse suspect Hector Saul Leandro is a predator.
Police officers arrested the 21-year-old man on multiple charges on Tuesday.
All of the charges are related to the sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl.
“We were able to obtain enough probable cause to get six arrest warrants for aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count continuous sexual abuse of a child,” Chief Treviño said.
Action 4 News does not identify victims of sexual abuse but investigators said Leandro had easy access to the girl through her family.
Chief Treviño explained how Leandro gained the girl's trust and then shattered it.
“You can tell what this predator did,” Chief Treviño said. “He targeted the low self-esteem of the victim, knew exactly what to tell her, when to tell and all that to be able to win her confidence and then go ahead and sexually assault her."
Chief Treviño said abuse had been going on since January but the case came to light on Monday night.
That's when the girl told her cousin and the cousin immediately told the girl’s parents.
The family confronted Leandro and then turned to police.
Chief Treviño says it's a crime the family needs to heal from together.
“On a case like this, it's real hard because we also need to look at the parents themselves have also become victims,” Treviño said. “Here is a person who they trusted, who had no reason to doubt why to doubt him.”
Leandro remains in custody at the Cameron County Jail under $350,000 dollars in bonds.
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