LiveLaughLuv
01-16-2008, 10:26 AM
By TOM HAYS – 2 hours ago
NEW YORK (AP) — There had been warning signs for years before 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown died from a vicious blow to the head.
School employees had reported that she had been absent for weeks the previous year. Neighbors noticed unexplained injuries and noted the child appeared underfed and small for her age. Child welfare workers had been alerted twice but said they found no conclusive evidence of abuse.
Two years after the girl's death shocked the city, hastened child welfare reforms and made her name synonymous with child abuse, opening statements were expected to begin Wednesday in her stepfather's murder trial.
Nixzmary's personal hell was likely to be exposed at trial through symbols of her horrific demise: the rope used to tether her to a chair, the cat-litter box she used as a toilet, the bathtub used to dunk her under cold water.
Authorities say evidence against her stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, includes crime-scene photos inside the family's three-bedroom apartment and a videotape of the defendant casting blame on the malnourished victim, who weighed 45 pounds at the time of her death.
"Sometimes she used to get me real angry and I used to just throw her," Rodriguez said during a post-arrest interview made public during a family court hearing.
Prosecutor Ama Dwimoh has called it a case of torture. Nixzmary "was beaten repeatedly," Dwimoh said. "She was bound like an animal."
Rodriguez's defense attorney, Jeffrey Schwartz, has sought to blame Nixzmary's mother, who faces a separate trial, for fostering an environment of abuse, and an overburdened bureaucracy — the city Administration for Children's Services — for doing too little to stop it. During jury selection, the lawyer has signaled he also plans to explore the dilemma of how best to discipline children.
"Would you agree with me that when it comes to parenting there is no absolute?" he asked prospective jurors. "Cesar Rodriguez is not being charged with being a bad parent. He's being charged with murder. Can you all agree to keep that distinction?"
The case, coupled with a series of high-profile deaths of children known to child welfare workers, sparked a public outcry for reform. City officials and lawmakers responded by bolstering the corps of caseworkers and drafting legislation to give life in prison without parole to parents who cause the death of a child under 14 through abuse.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iZVFBo_7mojtSZCmZnFd7aERSYAgD8U700OO0
NEW YORK (AP) — There had been warning signs for years before 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown died from a vicious blow to the head.
School employees had reported that she had been absent for weeks the previous year. Neighbors noticed unexplained injuries and noted the child appeared underfed and small for her age. Child welfare workers had been alerted twice but said they found no conclusive evidence of abuse.
Two years after the girl's death shocked the city, hastened child welfare reforms and made her name synonymous with child abuse, opening statements were expected to begin Wednesday in her stepfather's murder trial.
Nixzmary's personal hell was likely to be exposed at trial through symbols of her horrific demise: the rope used to tether her to a chair, the cat-litter box she used as a toilet, the bathtub used to dunk her under cold water.
Authorities say evidence against her stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, includes crime-scene photos inside the family's three-bedroom apartment and a videotape of the defendant casting blame on the malnourished victim, who weighed 45 pounds at the time of her death.
"Sometimes she used to get me real angry and I used to just throw her," Rodriguez said during a post-arrest interview made public during a family court hearing.
Prosecutor Ama Dwimoh has called it a case of torture. Nixzmary "was beaten repeatedly," Dwimoh said. "She was bound like an animal."
Rodriguez's defense attorney, Jeffrey Schwartz, has sought to blame Nixzmary's mother, who faces a separate trial, for fostering an environment of abuse, and an overburdened bureaucracy — the city Administration for Children's Services — for doing too little to stop it. During jury selection, the lawyer has signaled he also plans to explore the dilemma of how best to discipline children.
"Would you agree with me that when it comes to parenting there is no absolute?" he asked prospective jurors. "Cesar Rodriguez is not being charged with being a bad parent. He's being charged with murder. Can you all agree to keep that distinction?"
The case, coupled with a series of high-profile deaths of children known to child welfare workers, sparked a public outcry for reform. City officials and lawmakers responded by bolstering the corps of caseworkers and drafting legislation to give life in prison without parole to parents who cause the death of a child under 14 through abuse.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iZVFBo_7mojtSZCmZnFd7aERSYAgD8U700OO0