Haunting video footage of the abuse endured by 10-year-old Aleida DePina and her painful final hours played a critical part in her father’s trial for beating the shy third-grader to death.
On Thursday, a lawyer for Jorge DePina argued that his conviction should be overturned because Pawtucket detectives’ seizure of the camera that captured those images was beyond the scope of a court-approved warrant.
Superior Court Judge Netti C. Vogel should not have admitted the camera and its videos at DePina’s trial in 2018, DePina’s lawyer, Angela M. Yingling, argued to the state Supreme Court.
“We have submitted that it’s an unreasonable interpretation of this warrant to seize this camera,” Yingling said in asking that DePina’s conviction be vacated and the case sent back to Superior Court.
DePina carried Aleida into Miriam Hospital dead on arrival around 5:30 p.m. on July 3, 2013.
Aleida’s autopsy revealed that she had been lashed many times, leaving her back and legs covered with bruises, gashes and whip marks. Some of the blows were delivered with such force that they tore her skin and left her with internal bleeding into her muscles.
It was the medical examiner’s findings that prompted Pawtucket detectives to return with a fresh search warrant to Aleida’s home a day later.
The warrant authorized the officers to seize “utensils, cooking instruments, heating elements, or items, any metal items, plastic items, or hard items, anything that may be used to swing or strike or tie, hold or bind. Further, any items with blood, semen, vomit on them or other items believed associated with pain, assault, child abuse, or homicide.”
Throughout the two-week trial, prosecutors showed horrific videos that captured DePina screaming at and whipping the child with painter’s tape wrapped around her head as he demanded that she eat. At times, he yelled, “Do you want me to kill you?”
The video images showed, too, that the child suffered mightily in the hours leading up to her death as intestinal fluids contaminated her abdominal cavity. The visibly weakened girl could be seen struggling to hold herself up at the edge of her father’s bed with her belly distended. Still, DePina screamed at her and struck her in the head.
Pawtucket father seeks to overturn murder conviction in daughter's death
Jorge DePina argues that video footage showing him abusing his 10-year-old daughter should not have been admitted at trial.
www.providencejournal.com
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