Elisa Izquierdo

Who was Elisa Izquierdo?

Elisa Izquierdo was a six-year-old Puerto Rican–Cuban-American girl who was beaten to death by her mother Awilda Lopez, a New York City drug addict, in 1995.

Described by authorities in New York as the "worst case of child abuse they had ever seen," the life and death of Elisa Izquierdo first made city and then national headlines when it became clear that New York City's Child Welfare System missed numerous opportunities to intervene with her family and to save her life. These failures to protect Elisa subsequently became the inspiration for Elisa's Law, a major restructuring of the New York child welfare increasing accountability of parties involved in child welfare and reducing areas of confidentiality relating to public disclosure in cases of this nature. Elisa's Law was implemented in February, 1996.

Her life story became the subject numerous media articles, from local tabloids such as the New York Daily News and The New York Post to the cover of Time Magazine. Her story was featured on an August 1996 episode of Dateline NBC.