Tag: child killed
5-year-old boy found dead after watching mom get beaten, thrown from cliff
A Kentucky man was charged Monday with the murder of a 5-year-old boy who watched helplessly as his mother was beaten, bound and pushed off a cliff over the weekend. The mother survived and was found by two hikers who alerted police, prompting a two-day search that ended earlier Monday when the boy’s body was discovered near where his mother was left for dead.
Police arrested Lonnie Belt, 41, and charged him with the murder of James Spoonamore. Belt also faces charges of assault, kidnapping and tampering with evidence. James’ mother, Jessica Durham, is recovering at a Lexington hospital.
Kentucky State Police Commissioner Rick Sanders said he did not know how the boy died. Results of an autopsy likely won’t be available for another two days.
It’s unclear if Belt has an attorney. Sanders said Durham and Belt are acquaintances and were not romantically involved.
Police offered few details of what happened. But a police report says Belt and Durham got into a fight over some money and “he hit her on the head, tied her up and took her to the cliff where he assaulted her again.” Sanders said two hikers discovered Durham Saturday morning at the bottom of an 80-foot embankment.
“James was with Jessica when he took her to the cliff and assaulted her,” the report states.
Sanders declined to answer questions about what happened. He said more than 200 people searched for the boy on Saturday and Sunday. The search involved police dogs, aircraft from the National Guard and lots of volunteers. Sanders said authorities found the boy at 9:31 a.m. about 180 feet off the road in Jackson County, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) southeast of Lexington.
The news was devastating for Durham and her family, which includes some relatives in Florida who were enduring Hurricane Irma while authorities were searching for the boy.
“Honestly, it’s been hell. That’s the only way to describe it,” said Mary Batson, Durham’s sister.
Cynthia Wallace, Durham’s mother and the boy’s grandmother, said she is still without power at her home near Winter Haven, Florida. She described James as a sweet boy who loved playing with cars and trucks and being in the water. He recently started kindergarten, and Wallace said she enjoyed looking at photos Durham sent her of the boy’s first day at school.
“He was so happy, he loved school and he even wanted to go on the weekends,” Wallace said. “It’s hard. It hurts. I just went through a hurricane and all of this here on top of me, I’m just hurt.”
via: http://abc7chicago.com/boy-found-dead-after-watching-mom-get-beaten-thrown-from-cliff/2407993/
MONTANA WOMAN USED METH AS TODDLER LAY DYING, PROSECUTORS SAY
A Montana woman abused a 13-month-old girl in her care, used methamphetamine while the child was unconscious and when the girl stopped breathing, put her body in a duffel bag and threw it in a trash can before going home to sleep, federal prosecutors said.
Janelle Red Dog, 43, of Poplar, has reached an agreement to plead guilty to second-degree murder in the April 2016 death of Kenzley Olson on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, home to about 10,000 members of the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes in northeastern Montana.
U.S. District Judge Brian Morris has set a change-of-plea hearing for May 1 in Great Falls.
Prosecutors were prepared to show that Kenzley was ill and Red Dog was frustrated because she could not get the girl to stop crying, according to an offer of proof filed Thursday. She hit the girl on the head four times, causing her to have a seizure and lose consciousness, court records said.
Red Dog did not seek medical help for Kenzley and instead used meth with a friend. Sometime early the next morning, she decided to take the girl to the hospital. Red Dog said the girl stopped breathing on the way.
“Red Dog, believing (Kenzley) to be dead, disposed of her body by placing her into a duffel bag and throwing the duffel bag in an alley trash can,” prosecutors said.
Kenzley died of multiple blunt force injuries, but an exam also noted numerous bruises from head to toe in various stages of healing, suggesting a pattern of continued physical abuse and neglect, an autopsy found.
“It could also not be determined if (Kenzley) was deceased at the time she was placed in the duffel bag, so asphyxia or cold exposure could not be ruled out as contributed to her death,” court records said. Kenzley had the flu and was in the beginning stages of pneumonia, the autopsy found.
Red Dog initially reported Kenzley missing on April 19, 2016, and suggested she may have been kidnapped.
Kenzley’s death came just weeks after John Lieba II abducted a 4-year-old girl from a park in the reservation town of Wolf Point and sexually assaulted her before trying to kill her. The girl was found several days later. Lieba was convicted earlier this month of kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse and assault resulting in serious bodily injury. He is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 3.
The day after making the report, Red Dog confessed and led investigators to the girl’s body.
Red Dog had been caring for Kenzley for three to four weeks prior to her death, court records said. Tribal Chairman Floyd Azure has said Kenzley’s mother was being held in the tribal jail at the time.
Red Dog’s mother, Rhea Starr, said her daughter was caring for Kenzley when no one else would.
“That baby was passed along like yesterday’s gossip,” Starr told The Associated Press last year.
Azure has said both cases show the impact of meth on the reservation. On Friday, Azure said drug use is still an issue on the reservation, but his department does not have the money and personnel to adequately address it.
via: http://abc7chicago.com/news/prosecutors-woman-used-meth-as-toddler-lay-dying/1938129/