"John" MAZZOLA - 13 yo - Las Cruces NM

Las Cruces NM ---- It wasn't just the bruising on his
face or the cut on his forehead, without the usual scraped elbows and
knees that come from a bike fall on a dirt road. It was what the
13-year-old boy - who does yard work and other odd jobs for many of the
residents on Hayride Road - said sometimes, when he was done with his
work."'I don't want to go home. Do you have any more work for
me?' When children don't want to go home, that's a big old red flag,"
said one neighbor Wednesday, who requested anonymity out of concern
about possible retaliation.But authorities say there was a reason
he didn't want to go home.The Doña Ana Sheriff's Department
alleges his mother, 38-year-old Sherri Mazzola, left welts on her son's
buttocks, back and legs with a nylon "lunge whip" used for training
horses, a metal broom handle and the plastic cap of a spray can over two
days for being unable to clean the bathroom in five minutes, repeating
her demands over and over and standing by watching the time on her cell phone.


After a number of concerned neighbors reported the strange
injuries, Mazzola, of the 700 block of Hayride Road, north of Las
Cruces, was arrested Monday.At a gathering Sunday, when concerned
neighbors delicately asked the 13-year-old how he hurt himself, he told
them a story about how he'd fallen off his bike, which his mother
repeated, saying "Boys will be boys," the neighbor said."We told
him we loved him, we cared about him, and just encouraged him and he
finally told," said one of the dozen neighbors present
that day. "A lot of people care about this young man."Sunday's
intervention focused on emphasizing caring about him, not "we know
something's happened," the neighbor said."It gave him the courage
to finally tell the story and that's the main thing: You have got to
give children support," she said.Originally from Westwood,
Calif., Mazzola told investigators she was a retired Marine, but her
bond information form lists her as a U.S. Air Force retiree involved in
"training." She was booked into the Dona Ana County Detention Center on
the felony charge, but bonded out Tuesday on a $10,000 surety bond. The
boy was released to foster parents; Mazzola's two older children do not
live at the residence, according to the sheriff's department.