It was almost a year ago that Gilbert Perez lost his only daughter in a terrible car crash.
His daughter died leaving behind a 3-month-old baby girl named Harmony.
For the grandfather, Harmony became the best gift his daughter could have left behind, but added it hasn’t been easy to see her.
“We had to take him to court to get visitation rights every other weekend," said Perez.
Perez told Action 4 News, Juan Martinez, the baby’s father has refused to cooperate with custody.
According to the Santa Rosa man, the entire matter caused him to go to court and said a judge finally granted him visitation.
Immediately after the first visits Perez said the baby had bruises and took her to the doctor.
The grandfather said several months passed, Harmony was now a year old, and that’s when things took a turn for the worse.
“She had a bump on this side of her head…on this right here…that’s why if you notice every time I put my hand close to her she pushes it away because it still hurts her," said Perez.
The Santa Rosa man provided us with hospital records from Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen, where it states the baby suffered a skull injury and acute internal bleeding.
He told us that right away the hospital called Child Protective Services.
According to Perez, CPS allowed him to keep the child until the investigation was over.
On Monday, the grandfather said he received a visit from CPS wanting the child back and willing to restore full custody to Martinez.
“Any father, any granddad seeing, knowing that somebody hurt their grandbaby or their child -- they would want to go do something to that person,” said Perez “I’m trying to keep faith in the legal system."
Action 4 contact CPS who told us they are not allowed to speak about any of their cases.
They also stated that usually when custody battles happen each side will bring up false allegations.
We also tried reaching the father of the baby but he didn’t answer.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forKGBT