The stepfather of a young boy who was rescued from his clutches by an observant waitress will spend the rest of his life rotting in jail after a Florida judge slapped him with the harshest penalty allowed by the law.

“You have utterly failed, not only in the role of parent, but simply in the role of human being,” Judge Wayne C. Wooten told Timothy Lee Wilson on Friday, according to WKMG. “For those reasons, I’m going to impose the sentence that the law allows me to impose, although candidly, in many ways, I feel like it is short of what you thoroughly and richly deserve.”

Wilson was arrested on New Year’s Day 2021 at a Mrs. Potato Restaurant in Orlando, Fla., when his waitress, Flaviane Carvalho, noticed that the young boy who was seated at the table with his younger sister, mother, and stepfather wasn’t eating. While the rest of the family group dug into their orders, the boy sat quietly and wasn’t interacting with the others.

For the perceptive waitress, it was a red flag.

(Video: WKMG/YouTube)

When she looked closer, Carvalho, who is also a manager at the eatery, noticed bruises on the little boy’s body.

Thinking fast, she scrawled a note on a piece of paper and surreptitiously showed it to the child.

“Do you need help?” the note read. “OK.”

The boy initially signaled that he was okay, but when Carvalho showed him the note a second time, he bravely nodded “yes.”

After speaking briefly with the other on-duty manager, Carvalho called the cops.

Police reports later confirmed that the 11-year-old child had endured horrific abuse at the hands of not only his stepfather, but at those of his mother, Kristen Swann, who did nothing to help her son.

According to reports, Wilson denied his stepson of food and water “for days at a time.”

When the police were finally called, the boy was 20 pounds underweight.

The abuse suffered by the child ranged from beatings if he didn’t perform “military-style exercises” to Wilson’s liking to being hung upside down from a door frame.

For Christmas, the child was chained to a dolly.

Then Orlando’s chief of police, Orlando Rolón said that were it not for Carvalho, the boy would have likely died.

“We probably would’ve been talking about a potential homicide investigation if [Carvalho] had not intervened when she did,” he said at the time.

Wilson was hit with 10 charges, including aggravated child abuse with a weapon, false imprisonment of a child, and child neglect.

Found guilty in June, Wilson was sentenced to life plus 30 years.

The child’s mother, Swann, was also arrested and convicted of child neglect. She will learn her fate when she is sentenced on September 16.

Police found no evidence that the boy’s 4-year-old half-sister had also suffered abuse, and the boy is now reportedly living with his biological father.

As for Carvalho, she’s just happy to see that justice was served for the quiet little boy she noticed that New Year’s Day.

Speaking to reporters, the waitress-turned-hero said simply, “I was used like a tool from God to help him.”

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Melissa Fine

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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.

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