Every time Hailey Valdez looks in the mirror, she winces at the scars streaking down her face like bolts of lightning.

When she takes her baby to hospital, memories of the four days she spent in the ICU, including two on a ventilator, come flooding back.

Just nine months ago, on her 24th birthday, she lay in her blood-soaked bedroom in Las Cruces, New Mexico, brutally beaten so severely that police initially thought she was dead.

“Police arrive at the bedroom and notice blood on the door. Inside, they find Isaiah Ortiz, crying over my body while wearing only socks,” Valdez recounted to the Daily Mail.

‘I am laying off the bed dripping blood from my head and my eye. I was exposed. No bottoms on and my crop top pushed up exposing my breasts.

“Officers try to communicate with me, but it takes a while for me to respond. My speech is impaired because I lost two teeth. Isaiah Ortiz hit me until my teeth fell out,” she continued.

Valdez, 24, watched the harrowing police bodycam footage too many times as she prepared to testify at her ex-boyfriend’s trial last month.

The 27-year-old unemployed alcoholic was subdued by officers within three minutes and faced charges of second-degree rape, aggravated domestic battery, and attempting to escape police custody.

Despite evidence from a rape kit indicating forced intercourse, incriminating witness statements, and the presence of blood throughout the house, he received a sentence of only four years in prison.

Hailey Valdez spent four days in hospital, two on a ventilator, after she was raped and viciously beaten on her 24th birthday last December

Isaiah Ortiz, 27, was arrested clad only in socks and charged with second-degree rape, aggravated domestic battery, and attempting to flee custody.

Just three days before his September 15 trial, prosecutor Anne Marie Swank accepted a plea deal to drop the rape charge.

‘How can you just let a rapist back out there with a slap on the wrist. As if I am nothing? Like what happened to me was nothing?’ Valdez said.

Valdez and Ortiz had been dating for about two years before the night of December 22, and their daughter was born in May last year.

But she was straining under the load of having to work long hours to pay for everything as Ortiz no longer had a job.

‘I tried to leave him so many times, but he always was just like, “I’m gonna do better” and I’d give him another chance,’ she said.

‘He had a really bad alcohol problem and when he was drunk he would be really aggressive, really mean – but he never hit me before this.

‘He was already on probation for having three DUIs, and he still never stopped drinking.’

Her older two children were in Arizona with her parents and the baby in Las Vegas with Ortiz’s parents so she could work hard over the holidays. 

Valdez as she was before she was beaten so savagely that two of her teeth were knocked out

A rape kit found swelling, lacerations, and bruising and she had other bruises on her thighs, legs and around her neck consistent with being choked

Scars still visible on Valdez’s head today that may be permanent

Valdez got home about 10pm from her job serving food at a country club to find Ortiz once again drinking with his cousin.

Not wanting to deal with him, she and her friend went back out and returned sometime later when he was asleep. 

But when they entered the bedroom ‘he just woke up in a rage’.

Valdez has no memory of anything that happened after she arrived home, but her friend gave a vivid and shocking description of what happened next.

‘He immediately grabbed me by my head and started putting my head on his genitals. I yelled stop get off me help,’ Valdez said.

‘He threw me to the floor and I was laid out.’

Ortiz then went after the friend, who ran out the front door to her car and called police. When she went back to try to save Valdez, she found Ortiz had locked her out.

Police took 10 to 15 minutes to arrive and realized Valdez was still alive when an officer found a pulse.

Bodycam footage showed her eventually come to and start crying hysterically, only pausing to tell them it was Ortiz who attacked her.

Police bodycam footage of the moment cops found Valdez after she was attacked

The aftermath of the attack with bloodstains all over her bed

Valdez was rushed to Mountain View Medical Hospital where staff had to get every male cop, doctor, and nurse out of the room before they could work on her.

‘I was so traumatized, still exposed and helpless just trying to keep my legs closed, still fighting,’ she said.

A rape kit found swelling, lacerations, and bruising and she had other bruises on her thighs, legs and around her neck consistent with being choked.

Gnarly stitches stayed in her head for five months and the scars remain today, and the left side of her face is still partially numb.

‘Everyone tells me it’s a good thing that you don’t remember because you must have been in a lot of pain. I know that I was screaming for help,’ she said.

Then came the heartbreaking call from Swank on September 12 telling her about the plea deal that dropped the rape charge in exchange for Ortiz pleading guilty to the other two.

He wouldn’t even have to register as a sex offender.   

Valdez said Swank told her the DA’s office took the plea deal because a jury may fail to convict because she was in a relationship with her attacker.

‘It would be hard to convince a jury despite the DNA coming back positive, the rape kit showing all the trauma, the police statements, the witness, all the pictures and evidence… I don’t understand,’ Valdez said.

‘I wanted to take my chances at trial and I never once agreed to drop the rape charge. That was very traumatizing for me.

‘She didn’t even give me a choice, she said it’s her choice. I feel completely failed by the justice system. This isn’t justice.’

Gnarly stitches stayed in her head for five months and the scars remain today, and the left side of her face is still partially numb

Valdez had to quit her job as she didn’t want anyone to see her face as it healed

Valdez also to this day doesn’t know the extent of Ortiz’s cousin’s involvement. He told police he was asleep and didn’t hear anything.

‘When the cops arrived and he is the one that opened the door and he is shirtless, his boots are tucked in, and he has blood on him,’ Valdez said.

Her shoes were also in the living room where he was sleeping and broken glass from a picture frame, and there was blood all over the house, according to police reports.

Valdez had to quit her job as she didn’t want anyone to see her face as it healed.

‘I’d have nightmares just looking at myself,’ she said.

She is still unable to date anyone and only recently began working as an Uber Eats driver after moving to Arizona.

‘I’m trying to move on but I’m really scared for when he gets out, that he’ll come after me or try to take the baby,’ she said.