Saturday 29 September 2012

FILICIDE: Michelle Harpster


RALEIGH, N.C. --
Our community tries to grasp for answers: after a mother's accused of killing her two year old son and then trying to take her own life.
At the Super 8 Motel on New Bern Avenue in Raleigh, police found Michelle Harpster barricaded in a room, with her son Joshua's lifeless body.
How could she? Why would she? Those questions haunt people who were in the motel when the incident took place, especially those with children themselves.
And it's even more difficult to understand, when you watch home videos that Michelle Harpster posted on Youtube over the past two years. They show a loving mother, with her little boy.
Sabra Harrington met the child. "He'd always say hey and pull on my leg or he'll play with my nephew sometimes, he was like, a real playful baby," said Harrington.
She is a young mother, who was also in the Super 8 Motel with her own one year old son, when police say Michelle Harpster killed her two year old son.
Harrington doesn't understand how a mother could hurt her child.
"It's hard being a single mom, but I love my baby. I would never try to hurt him," said Harrington.
Dr. Michael Teague is a forensic psychologist who has worked on many murder cases, including several in Raleigh in which mothers killed their children. "If a woman is going to kill someone it is going to be her child, a young child under 18, or her spouse or boyfriend," said Teague.
Teague says women rarely kill, but when they do, they're more likely to kill those closest to them. He says this crime shows a pattern of desperation and poverty.
"When people first become suicidal, then the homicidal plan comes second, and probably in her mind, oh we've suffered so much already, I'm gonna go ahead and kill you to take you away from the suffering and kill myself as well," said Teague.

Sunday 23 September 2012

FILICIDE: Crystal Cardenas


Mother who killed daughter, nine, after 17 months of torturing, punching, kicking and burning her is sentenced to 15 years to life in prison


A mother who punched and kicked her daughter, nine, for 17 months until she eventually died has been sentenced to spend at least 15 years in prison for her death.
Crystal Cardenas, 27, from San Diego, pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder. Her daughter Elizabeth died in hospital after receiving a fatal punch and kick to her stomach. 
Deputy District Attorney Lindsey Krause said Elizabeth Holloway was choked, punched, kicked, burned and thrown to the ground during the time she lived with her mother.
Abuse: In the 17 months that Elizabeth Holloway, nine, lived with her mother, she was choked, punched, kicked, burned and thrown on the ground
Abuse: In the 17 months that Elizabeth Holloway, nine, lived with her mother, she was choked, punched, kicked, burned and thrown on the ground
Mother: Crystal Cardenas, 25, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison after she admitted fatally punching and kicking her daughter in the stomach
Mother: Crystal Cardenas, 25, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison after she admitted fatally punching and kicking her daughter in the stomach
She told the court she had spoken to her daughter like she was a piece of trash and discarded her like a piece of trash.
According to UT San Diego, Elizabeth’s father, Willie Holloway Jr, told Cardenas in court: 'I don’t know how you could do this to her. I just want justice. I’m going to leave it in God’s hands.'
 
The nine-year-old had been living with her father until September 2009, when she moved in with her mother, sister, seven, and one-year-old brother.
On January 17: Cardenas punched her daughter in the abdomen, resulting in a bruised pancreas and a transection of her intestines. She died two days later
On January 17: Cardenas punched her daughter in the abdomen, resulting in a bruised pancreas and a transection of her intestines. She died two days later
Hearing: The prosecutor, left, told the court that the prolonged death of Elizabeth after the fatal blow to her abdomen but her mother, right, would have caused the nine-year-old extreme agony from internal injuries
Hearing: The prosecutor, left, told the court that the prolonged death of Elizabeth after the fatal blow to her abdomen but her mother, right, would have caused the nine-year-old extreme agony from internal injuries
Cardenas inflicted 'slapping, punching, kicking, choking, stomping and actually burned her daughter', Deputy District Attorney Lindsey Krause told the judge.
A few days before she died, Cardenas punched Elizabeth in the stomach with such force, she severed her intestine and bruised her pancreas.
She vomited, lost feeling in her lower leg and told her half-sister she felt like she was dying.
When she was rushed to hospital after passing out two days later, doctors said she died from internal injuries.
Cardenas' boyfriend Lorenzo Castillo, who was living with them, pleaded guilty last year to felony child abuse and was sentenced to nine years behind bars.
The judge said Cardenas will remain in prison a full 15 years, then it will be up to the state parole board whether she serves additional time.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2205550/Mother-tortured-punched-kicked-burned-daughter-17-months-eventually-delivering-fatal-blow-sentenced-15-years-life-prison.html#ixzz27Jk53wEn
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FILICIDE: Madagascar, the fate of twins.


SAVED ...from tribal curse which makes parents murder twins

The Sun On Sunday special investigation
at isolated Madagascan orphanage

Twins
Twins ... brothers who make up 82 children currently housed at orphanage
Felix Seuffert
9

IN a remote corner of Madagascar lies one of the world’s most incredible orphanages.

The tropical island is known as the idyllic setting for the animated movie of the same name but the isolated institution has remained hidden to the outside world — until now.
A safe house for abandoned twins from the Antambahoaka tribe, they are lost infants demonised by an ancient curse that leads to their murder at the hands of the people they expected to love them most: Their PARENTS.
“There are many old ways that have been used to kill newborn twins up here in the mountains,” says Latif, our local guide, shivering in horror at the thought of generations of dead children buried in the spongy rainforest floor beneath our feet.
Mananjary, Madagascar
Off of Africa ... Mananjary, Madagascar
Latif says: “Traditionally, the ‘matching’ babies from the tribe were smothered in large clay pots. These were filled to the top with damp earth.”
Other families would place their twin babies in the cattle sheds before the cows came in from the fields.
Trampled by the animals, they would have no chance of survival. Others are drowned.
Latif says: “Now most of the twins are left alone in the forest at only a few hours old so they starve and are eaten by animals.
“Nature hides the evidence this way. But this is carried out in places few will ever speak of.”
One villager matter-of-factly explained: “We will not allow twins in our land. With every breath these children are cursed.”
Over the years thousands of innocent twins have been killed without a single prosecution by the authorities.
Today the surviving children — abandoned together as babies in baskets by the roadside or riverbank rather than murdered — remain as the only proof of the brutality.
In the refuge they are given the love their families denied them and the chance to be adopted and accepted by society, as shown by the pictures on the left. A sign at the gate simply says: “A Centre Welcoming and Transiting Abandoned Twins”.
Audrey & Saya with carer
Saviour ... carer poses with twins at orphanage
Felix Seuffert
Inside, identical twins run screaming and laughing across a sandy courtyard.
Other twins, whose siblings are dead or inexplicably separated from them, seek comfort in the arms of the matronly carers.
The children are all from the Antambahoaka tribe, one of the most mysterious in the world.
The belief that twins should not remain with their biological parents is blamed on a curse and perpetuated by the tribe’s ten chiefs, elderly men elected to their positions.
The elders blame the failure of Madagascar’s 1947 revolt against the French colonial authorities as one example of the curse, which they say stretches back at least three centuries.
According to the legend, a queen from their tribe fled fighting but forgot one of her twins.
She sent soldiers back to fetch the child and they were all massacred.
There is no historical proof of the event ever happening.
Madame Julie Rasoarinanana, a devout Christian who runs the orphanage, says: “There is nowhere else on Earth where little twins are left to die in the dirt.
“For this I am ashamed but we must do our best. We must do everything we can for these children. We saved them from death at the hands of their own — and we must grow them.”
Video:

Inside Madagascar's miracle working orphange

REMOTE island slays newborn twins as a superstition, but hospice does best to rescue as many as possible
Madame Julie claims to have had at least 300 twins adopted in the past decade alone. As we speak, she pulls out a pile of disturbing photographs. They show newborns abandoned on the road near the tribe’s settlements. In some cases, she tells me, the children are found by more sympathetic tribespeople and brought to the orphanage’s doors.
The images are upsetting. They show newborns still coated in amniotic fluid. In most cases their eyes are fused shut.
Julie adds: “It goes against all motherly instincts to abandon your child. But to the Antambahoaka mothers these children are cursed.
“They cannot be touched after birth. All they can do is cut the umbilical cord and turn their back on the babies. They will not wash them, feed them or look at them.”
Her colleague Madame Luciene Razafindrasoe is a senior nursery carer.
She said: “If they don’t reach us in the first few hours, they often die without food. We rely on samaritans to find them after they are abandoned.
“The open wounds of the umbilical chord and their need for milk makes it a battle against time. When the babies arrive dead it affects us all. It seems impossible to recover from that... this is a sickness in our culture.”
The orphanage was established in 1987. It houses 82 children, from just a few months to mid-teens.
At least 40 of the children are twins or twins who have been separated from or lost their sibling to disease.
Madame Luciene adds: “Most people who adopt wish for newborns, so they can mould and shape them as their own — but as the kids grow older they have less chance of adoption.
“We never separate the twins, no matter what, so they have each other.
“It is especially difficult for the children who came to us as separated twins. They are growing up without their other half. That is so sad.”
Photos ... former residents who've been adopted
Photos ... former residents who've been adopted
For Gogo, a 29-year-old twin brought up in the orphanage with his sibling Mike, life as an orphan gave him more of an education than he would have received in his community. Today he travels round teaching locals in rural communities about why they should abandon the taboo.
He says: “The saddest thing for me is that I probably have brothers and sisters I will never meet. I could be standing in a market being sold vegetables by my own sister and I wouldn’t know it’s her. The thought of what I have lost makes me cry.”
Two of the oldest twins in the orphanage, 13-year-old Dorothé and Patricia, have only ever known the four walls of the centre.
Potential adoptive parents have come and gone but the girls remain.
“We have seen our friends go abroad to families in France,” said Dorothé.
“It is hard never to have had parents but the carers here brought us up as their own.” Madagascar is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa and roughly the size of France.
It is the only country in the world where twins are specifically targeted for murder by their families.
Professor Ignace Rakoto, an academic who has been studying the tribe, says: “There is a serious problem here but we are behind on predicting scale.
“If anyone mentions twins they believe they will bring a curse. Not only that, they know the practice of killing children could land them in prison. So these communities, which are already closed off from much of the world, are silent on the issue.”
Mananjary, Madagascar
Remote ... Mananjary, Madagascar
Felix Seuffert
As we drive through Antambahoaka country, children flee at the sound of car tyres spinning on muddy tracks.
In the most remote villages small children burst into tears screaming vazaha (foreigners) at us.
Red-eyed farmers, drunk on home-made beer, sit as their wives pound rice using 6ft clubs. Little has changed in a century. Although figures are impossible to come by, it is estimated that hundreds of children are still being killed here each year.
But, according to Madame Julie, the mothers who abandon their children are also victims.
She says: “We cannot see them as monsters. They won’t touch their newborn child. The umbilical cord is sliced and they turn away for ever.
“To do that takes a remarkable strength of conviction or, more likely, a sense of terror that they are to blame for everything.
“That they are the reason for the curse — and I doubt they ever recover from that.”


Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/4552249/Sun-On-Sunday-special-investigation-into-orphanage-in-Madagascar.html#ixzz27JjO8xSZ

INFANTICIDE:It was shame that killed the baby


Wednesday September 19, 2012

It was shame that killed the baby

THE STAR SAYS


SHE hid her pregnancy for many agonising months. But when she finally gave birth, her “secret” unravelled in the most horrifying way when she flung her newborn out of the window of her third floor apartment.
On the surface, the infant was killed by her 20-year-old unwed mother. But look deeper and it is actually shame that took away that little baby’s life.
Because this almost unimaginable act which took place on Sunday in the Desa Mentari Apartments in Petaling Jaya is an indictment of how our society treats unmarried mothers and babies born out of wedlock.
The 20-year-old, a factory worker, is not the first mother to kill her child in such a horrifying way. Last October, a 19-year-old restaurant trainee also threw her baby out of her second floor apartment in Selayang. That baby too was alive when he was thrown out. Other women have resorted to trying to flush their infants down toilets, throwing them into dumpsters or simply abandoning them.
Each time it happens, we start our litany on declining morals, lack of religious knowledge and negligent parents.
Then, we follow up with a chorus on the need for spiritual guidance, sex education and vigilance. We even set up a few baby hatches for mothers to leave their unwanted offspring.
If the “soft” approach didn’t work, the authorities can threaten to charge these young mothers with murder, and judges can mete out heavy deterrent punishments.
We have done this song and dance repeatedly, but the same scenes keep playing – a girl hides her pregnancy, gives birth alone and the baby is abandoned or dies. The child is either discovered mercifully alive or tragically dead and then the ensuing uproar.
In the last five years, more than 400 cases of abandoned babies have been reported and the mothers are almost always teenage girls.
We can be outraged all we want, and focus our anger at these young women.
But ultimately, it is we who have failed these girls.
These baby-dumping cases are direct indictments of our failure to recognise and address our blinkered approach to young people’s sexuality. We teach and preach to our children that they should abstain from premarital sex, and expect them to obey blindly. Then, we clam up and do not talk about sex to them, as though acknowledging its existence would be some form of consent for them to engage in sex.
It has only created an unforgiving environment where pregnant girls would not seek help for fear of bringing shame to their families, and risk the community’s condemnation.
We do this vigorously, even as our children are inundated with sexually-charged messages through the media and Internet, and even with so much evidence of young people being sexually active.
We offer them no strategy other than abstinence. We terrorise our children – especially girls – into being ashamed of their bodies and sexuality.
It is a scenario that creates a veil of ignorance, and the result are babies born out of unwanted pregnancies.
Sure, we can continue to be in denial and think that engaging in premarital sex is a moral issue. But young people being sexually active really is a public health matter that requires pragmatic policies.
The reality is our young do not have easy access to reproductive health information and services; some of these young mothers didn’t even know they were pregnant. There are also few facilities and services for them to learn about and prevent unwanted pregnancies, and protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases.
But beyond all that, we need to stop the condemnation and do what is right by our children. We need to end the shame, remove the stigma and instead offer compassion and support when they need it most.

FILICIDE (multiple): Dawn Brown


Clearwater mother, her two children found dead in their home

By John Woodrow Cox, Time Staff Writer
In Print: Sunday, September 23, 2012



Officials say Dawn Brown killed her two children before hanging herself.
Officials say Dawn Brown killed her two children before hanging herself.

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CLEARWATER — William Lavold thought it was a bad joke or a poorly worded expression. Anything other than what it really was.
"I need your help," the text message said. "Dawn killed the kids."
It came from his best friend, Murphy Brown. And it meant exactly what it said.
Sometime Friday night, Brown's wife, Dawn, killed their two children — Zander, 9, and Zayden, 5 — authorities believe. They say she then wrapped an electrical cord around her throat, tied it to a ceiling fan and hanged herself.
Lavold said Pinellas County sheriff's investigators told him she drowned the children in a bathtub. Officials said they would not release a cause of death until after an autopsy.
Some neighbors said the killings were unthinkable, something they never expected. Others had seen it coming for months.
A series of setbacks and wrong turns — punctuated by an arrest and financial ruin — had ripped the family apart.
Dawn Brown, 34, had always wanted to be a teacher. But years ago, she lost her scholarship and dropped out of college, said neighbor Rob Petryszak. That changed her.
"She fell into a depression," he said, "and really just never came out of it."
Dawn Brown, charged last year with welfare fraud, was scheduled to go before a judge Oct. 1, records show. The couple also faced a looming foreclosure. Their electricity had been shut off for weeks.
They began cooking meals on a charcoal grill. To heat up frozen dinners in a microwave, they ran an extension cord to a neighbor's outlet.
Murphy Brown, 36, works as a freelance mechanic. No one in the neighborhood could remember the last time his wife had a job.
Dawn Brown's haven from her troubles had long been the darkness of her bedroom, where she spent hours on her computer reading romance novels.
"With the power out, she couldn't read her books anymore," said Petryszak, 39. "It forced her out of her little comfort zone. It forced her to deal with the kids."
The stress of their situation didn't seem to affect her husband the same way. Petryszak said Murphy Brown had told him he was happy the electricity had been cut off. It would make his kids better appreciate air-conditioning.
With money from somewhere, friends said, Murphy Brown played poker two or three nights each week at local bars and restaurants. On Friday night, when authorities say Dawn Brown murdered their children, he was at Stroker's Sports Bar & Grill playing cards. He found them when he returned home at 2 a.m. Saturday.
One neighbor after the next said they know Murphy Brown well, and most of them like him. He is a friendly guy who often fixes people's cars, even if they can't afford to pay him.
But Dawn Brown was different. She was an enigma to people here. Neighbors saw her occasionally walking with the kids. They waved and smiled. She waved and smiled back. But she seldom talked to anyone.
"She seemed like the type of lady who had something wrong with her. She showed no love," said Shanna Fowler, 24. "She just didn't care."
Even Lavold, who met her years ago, said he didn't know her well. "I absolutely hate her now," he said.
The couple began dating more than a decade ago. Around the same time, in 2000, Murphy Brown was arrested and convicted on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery. It's unclear who the victim was.
On Nov. 2 of that year, Murphy Brown paid $75,000 for a simple, two-bedroom house at 2015 Sidney St. A lender soon after initiated foreclosure, but those proceedings were later dropped.
The couple got married in 2004. Murphy Brown later told friends that was a mistake.
In 2006, the Browns took out a $123,000 mortgage on their home. Their financial woes soon worsened. Dawn Brown was arrested in June of last year on a charge of welfare fraud. Petryszak said Murphy Brown told him the crime had something to do with Social Security checks.
In October, a judge ordered Dawn Brown to undergo pretrial intervention, a rehabilitative service that provides defendants with an alternative to traditional punishments.
Four months later, the Browns' home fell into a second foreclosure.
Meanwhile, records indicate, Dawn Brown didn't pay court-ordered costs related to the fraud case, and — less than three weeks ago — her opportunity to receive pretrial intervention was revoked.
She entered a plea of not guilty and a criminal hearing was scheduled for next month.
Murphy Brown, Petryszak said, had considered divorcing his wife but was afraid she would get custody of the children.
Zander and Petryszak's 10-year-old son, Zachary, were best friends. The Browns' children came to his house nearly every day. Sometimes, he said, they complained about their home life.
The Browns' house, Petryszak said, was a mess. The floors were stained and trash was strewn everywhere. The dishes were usually piled so high in the sink that the kids couldn't fill glasses of water.
Petryszak had for weeks considered calling the Florida Department of Children and Families to report the situation.
He never did.
Saturday afternoon, the remnants of that morning's horror had all but disappeared. The homicide detectives were gone, and the yellow tape had been stripped away. Lavold searched the back yard for the Brown's black dog, Shadow, who had been missing since Friday night.
The home, from the outside, looked much like it would any other day. The grass stood shin high, and vines of ivy hung from the worn vinyl siding. Near their front door was the charcoal grill over which the family had roasted marshmallows days earlier.
On each side of a lowered basketball hoop, the boys' bikes lay on their sides in the grass. A yellow volleyball with a smiley face was nearby.
At the same time, in a neighborhood known for the number of children who play in its streets, parents explained to sons and daughters that their pals, Zander and Zayden, couldn't play with them anymore. That they were in heaven now. That in this world, sometimes, people do bad things for no good reason.
Times researchers John Martin and Caryn Baird and staff writer Kameel Stanley contributed to this report. John Woodrow Cox can be reached at jcox@tampabay.com.

FILICIDE: Julie Schenecker


Tampa Bay Times

Mothers who kill

Times Staff
 Sunday, September 23, 2012

Julie Schenecker
The Tampa mother is charged with shooting and killing her 16-year-old daughter, Calyx, and 13-year-old son, Beau, on Jan. 9, 2011. Schenecker left messages suggesting she was going to kill herself too, but didn't. Hillsborough prosecutors have charged Schenecker with first-degree murder and are seeking the death penalty
.

FILICIDE: Mayra Rosales too fat for murder:


Too fat for murder: TLC's Half-Ton Killer tells shocking tale of 1,100lb woman who confessed to killing her nephew - until her weight proved testimony was a LIE

By DEBORAH ARTHURS and VICTORIA WELLMAN
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TLC's Half-Ton Killer? tells of how, in March 2008, Texan Mayra Rosales, 31, told police officers that she had killed her two-year-old nephew, Eliseo Jr, by accidentally rolling on top of him while babysitting. 
Such was her 1,100lb frame, Mayra imagined her story to be believable, but after doctors revealed that the boy could only have died from a blow to the head, the reality that she was so big she couldn't move her arm, became her attorney's main argument for her defence.
Innocent: TLC have made a documentary about Mayra Rosales, the 1,100lb woman who confessed to a crime she didn't commit to protect her sister and was found innocent thanks to her weight
Innocent: TLC have made a documentary about Mayra Rosales, the 1,100lb woman who confessed to a crime she didn't commit to protect her sister and was found innocent thanks to her weight
'I should be punished, I did wrong,' Mayra sobbed at the time as law enforcement officials took her tears to be those of guilt and a media storm was ignited.
'Why isn't this woman in jail?' Demanded Nancy Grace at the time. 

'Could they even give her enough poison to execute her,' asked another pundit.
But there was more to the story than met the eye, her attorney Sergio Valdez realised, after doctors announced the cause of Eliseo's death.
Not going anywhere: Mayra (pictured with her husband Bernie) told police that she killed her nephew by accident by rolling on top of him while babysitting
Not going anywhere: Mayra (pictured with her husband Bernie) told police that she killed her nephew by accident by rolling on top of him while babysitting
Getting to the bottom of it: She later confessed to lying to protect her sister when her attorney Mayra¿s attorney Sergio Valdez (right) realised her testimony did not back up the cause of death established by doctors
Getting to the bottom of it: She later confessed to lying to protect her sister when her attorney Mayra¿s attorney Sergio Valdez (right) realised her testimony did not back up the cause of death established by doctors
The story behind Half-Ton Killer? is at once a crime thriller about sibling loyalty and a medical drama about Mayra's journey from condemnation to freedom in January this year.
After lying to the authorities, Mayra eventually confessed the truth: that she had invented the story to protect her sister Jaime, whom she claimed had struck the boy various times over his body with a hairbrush earlier the same day. 
In 2008, shortly before tragedy struck, Mayra and her husband Bernie had moved in to live with sister Jaime in Sullivan City.
Jaime had undertaken a full-time role caring for her when Mayra became so large she struggled to walk.
Despite the fact that Mayra was almost entirely bed-ridden, Jaime would often go out, leaving Mayra in charge of her four children.
Murdered: An autopsy revealed that Eliseo Jr was killed by a blow to the head, not by being crushed in a fall
Murdered: An autopsy revealed that Eliseo Jr, left, was killed by a blow to the head, not by being crushed in a fall
'I was more of a mother than Jaime,' Mara said in an interview with the UK's Reveal magazine. 'Whenever she wanted to go out or go shopping, she didn’t take the kids. She would always leave them at home with me.'
But events took a horrific turn in March 2008, when Mayra witnessed her sister hit Eliseo Jr. ‘Jaime was giving my nephew breakfast and he didn’t want to eat,’ says Mayra. ‘I told her if he was crying he wasn’t going to eat, but she got mad, got a brush and hit him on his arms, legs and head which left a bump. Afterwards, she got his Winnie the Pooh blanket, covered him up and put him to bed. Then she went out, leaving me with the children.'
Later that day, Eliseo Jr began suffering from breathing problems and Mayra phoned for an ambulance. Jaime phoned her sister from the hospital, sobbing that the police would not let her see her son unless she told them who had hurt him. Jaime begged Mayra to tell the authorities she was responsible for the injuries.
In a move she would come to bitterly regret, Mayra accepted.
‘People may not understand this but I wanted to help my sister and I didn’t want the authorities to take the other children’ says Mayra. 
‘I told the investigators that I rolled over to the edge of my bed to where Junior was and my hand slipped and I fell on him with my hand. I fell. I was the one to blame. But only by accident.'
Mayra was subsequently arrested and charged with capital murder. 
The story quickly incited a media frenzy with speculation to her guilt flying freely.
But as the trial progressed, the court heard that the fatal injuries sustained by the boy were consistent with a blow to the head and could not have been caused by someone falling on him. 
Front door: Authorities had to cut a whole in the side of her sister's house to get Mayra out and take her to hospital to be treated for chronic obesity-related issues
Front door: Authorities had to cut a whole in the side of her sister's house to get Mayra out and take her to hospital to be treated for chronic obesity-related issues
Manpower: Mayra had been living at her sister Jaime's who, she later confessed, beat her little boy with a hairbrush so severely for not eating his food that he dies from head trauma
Manpower: Mayra had been living at her sister Jaime's who, she later confessed, beat her little boy with a hairbrush so severely for not eating his food that he dies from head trauma
'It would have required her to have to swing her arm to strike the child on the head but she could never move her arm in that manner,’ says Mayra’s lawyer Sergio Valdez. 
‘We knew that her size was her best defence because she couldn’t move her arm.'
Despite the physical impossibility of Mayra committing such a crime, the authorities had to conduct a full trial, with Mayra as the chief suspect.
Months went by before a courtroom was found that was large enough to accommodate Mayra, and doors and walls had to be removed to fit her in.
Finally, Mayra could testify. But as a result of her testimony, Jaime went on the run, leaving Mayra facing the possibility of a death sentence. 
'I wasn’t surprised,' says Mayra. 'Jaime is into a lot of bad things and I understood why she did it.'
As the trial date approached, prosecutors became suspicious at Mayra's account that she fell on Eliseo Jr. Mayra decided at that point to come clean with a confession that would incriminate her sister. 
Emergency: A team of doctors help move Mayra who was able to attend the court proceedings only because they took down walls to accommodate her
Emergency: A team of doctors help move Mayra who was able to attend the court proceedings only because they took down walls to accommodate her
Loyal: When ambulances rushed Eliseo Jr to hospital after he was found not breathing, Mayra's sister Jaime called her begging her to cover for her which she willingly did so that the other children were not taken away
Loyal: When ambulances rushed Eliseo Jr to hospital after he was found not breathing, Mayra's sister Jaime called her begging her to cover for her which she willingly did so that the other children were not taken away
Partners: Mayra's attorney urged her to stop lying or she would face death in prison alone
Partners: Mayra's attorney urged her to stop lying or she would face death in prison alone
Testifying from her bed at home under oath, she admitted that Jaime was behind the abuse. 
‘We were all trying to cover for my sister,’ she says. ‘There was abuse from her towards her son. She yelled at him. She kicked him. On that night Junior didn’t want to eat and she got frustrated and she hit him on the head with a hairbrush. I thought I was dying anyway so I decided to admit that I’d done it to protect my sister because I love her.’
A few months later, Jaime was persuaded to return to Texas where she stood trial for her son’s murder. 
Pleading guilty to the lesser charge of causing injury to a child, she was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
The stress of the case caused Mayra's health to deteriorate to the point that she had to be admitted to a hospital for the super-obese, where she remains today, confined to a hospital bed. When a regular ambulance was too small to transport her, a removal truck had to be used. 
‘I began retaining more water in my legs and they got so hard,’ she says. ‘The skin is so stretched out that it hurts. It feels like my legs are going to pop like a balloon. Sometimes the sores open up and water oozes out. I wondered if we should amputate
Abusive: Jaime Rosales was found guilty of causing injury to a child and sentenced to 15 years in jail. Her remaining three children, fathered by boyfriend Eliseo Sr, right, are now being cared for by their grandmother
Abusive: Jaime Rosales was found guilty of causing injury to a child and sentenced to 15 years in jail. Her remaining three children, fathered by boyfriend Eliseo Sr, right, are now being cared for by their grandmother. 
'Sometimes I got mad. I tried not to show it that much because I didn’t want anyone feeling bad for me. It was like I was in prison, with chains holding me there so I couldn’t move.’
Mayra has suffered chronic skin infections around her body caused by the folds of fat in her skin, and doctors attempting to treat her have removed several litres of fat and fluid from around her body. 
In the first 12 weeks of hospital treatment she shed 20 stone. 
Doctors have told Mayra she still has years of treatment ahead of her. Against all odds, Mayra manages to look to the future with optimism.
‘I’m really sad that my sister is in jail but I think my sister understands now that her actions were wrong. I believe she can change and learn from what happened. Today it’s like I’m getting a new chance. I never gave up on hope and faith that some day my life will change.'
TLC's special Half-Ton Killer? will air Wednesday, October 10th at 9/8c
Watch teaser here


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2206873/Too-fat-murder-TLCs-Half-Ton-Killer-tells-shocking-tale-1-100lb-woman-confessed-killing-nephew--weight-proved-testimony-LIE.html#ixzz27IZ3gcUt
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