This big mother fucker is what we are talking about.
Related Link:is seeking additional charges against 29-year-old Harve Lamar Johnson, a local man who stands accused of beating a toddler to death with a video game controller.
The case in question dates back to April 6, 2008. On that date, Johnson and his live-in girlfriend, 19-year-old Neida E. Baez, were hanging out inside their West Philadelphia Street home with Baez's 2-year-old daughter, Darisabel Baez. It remains unclear why, but at some point Johnson allegedly snapped, and went after Darisabel.
Roughly 45 minutes later, Darisabel was sprawled out limp and motionless on the floor. Bruises and lacerations covered much of her tiny body. Lying next to her was the alleged instrument of her pain, a videogame controller, an item meant for fun that had perversely been turned into a tool for inflicting pain and death.
According to police statements, Johnson scooped up Darisabel and carried her into the bathroom, where he placed her in the tub and ran cold water over her in an attempt to wake her, but she did not react. Uncertain about what to do next, Johnson allegedly picked up Darisabel again and carried her into the next room, where he dropped her limp body into her mother's lap.
Baez called 911, and both the police and ambulance personnel responded and rushed Darisabel to Hershey Medical Center, where she was admitted into the critical care unit.
During police questioning, Johnson allegedly admitted to beating Darisabel with the game controller, but offered no motive for the crime. Neida allegedly admitted to hearing her daughter's cries for help, but, like Johnson, offered no reason for the brutal attack and failed to explain why she did not intervene. As a result of the investigation, Johnson was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. For her part, or lack thereof, Neida was also arrested, and charged with endangering the welfare of a child.
The following day, Darisabel died at the hospital.
During an interview with WGAL-TV,As a result of Darisabel's death, Johnson's charges were upgraded to include homicide.Dauphin County Coroner Graham Hetrick described Darisabel's injuries as the worst case of child abuse he had ever seen.
Assistant district attorneys Timothy Barker and Christopher Moore have since filed an 89-page memorandum, requesting that new evidence be admitted – specifically, new testimony from Dr. Wayne Ross, the pathologist who performed Darisabel's autopsy.
During the initial autopsy, Ross concluded that Darisabel had suffered 150 injuries, which caused trauma to her brain, liver and heart, as well as extensive hemorrhaging and swelling throughout her body. Ross described the injuries as "extensive and indicative of torture."Ross has since reexamined photographs of Darisabel's body, which allegedly reveal abrasions to Darisabel's vulva which are consistent with fingernail marks.The latter of the two modifications will be used in support of the prosecution’s intent to seek the death penalty against Johnson.As a result of the new findings, prosecutors are seeking to add a charge of aggravated indecent assault against Johnson. In the event the new charge is allowed, they are also requesting to add the aggravating factor that he "committed a killing while in the perpetration of a felony."
The prosecution’s memorandum has been filed as a counter to pretrial motions that were recently submitted by Johnson's attorney to suppress, limit, and bar evidence. Those motions included a request that self-incriminating statements Johnson allegedly made to police not be admitted in court and also a request to bar Ross's testimony about the alleged torture.
Prosecutors contend that the statements were both "spontaneous" and "voluntary." In regard to Ross's testimony, prosecutors have agreed not to use the word "torture”; however, they do plan to ask Ross to explain to the jury Darisabel's "degree of pain and suffering."
In addition to motions filed by Johnson's attorney, prosecutors are also countering a motion filed by Baez's attorney, in which she asks that first- and third-degree murder charges against his client be dismissed. According to Baez’s attorney, his client lacked the "specific intent to kill" and the requisite of "malice."
Prosecutors contend that the "malice" centers on Baez’s failure to intervene.
"[Baez] did nothing to provide [Darisabel] aid, never attempted to call for help [and] misled emergency personnel as to how her daughter became injured," read the prosecution’s memorandum.
A judge has yet to rule on any of the motions.
Johnson's capital murder trial is set to begin on November 2. A trial date for Baez has not yet been set.
I have no TY button either,but,TY,,YWWhisper- I still can't find my thanks button, but TY for this update.
Trial under way for 2-year-old's murder
Source: http://ydr.inyork.com/ci_13749196
York County prosecutors opened their capital homicide prosecution of Harve L. Johnson with visibly emotional testimony from three veteran police officers.
The day ended with a fourth officer documenting blood spatter and clumps of hair found in the home where 2-year-old Darisabel Baez was allegedly fatally beaten by Johnson. 28, on April 6, 2008, the day after the child's birthday.
The toddler died the next day at Hershey Medical Center from her injuries.
On April 6, 2008, York City Police officers rushed to a second-floor apartment at 710 W. Philadelphia St. when county control sent out a dispatch for a 2-year-old in cardiac arrest.
Recalling the battered and bruised body of the little girl lying naked on the kitchen floor brought three officers almost to tears on the witness stand Monday in the York County Judicial Center.
Officer Andy Baez said, after he and Officer Lisa Daniels unsuccessfully performed CPR on the child, he scooped the girl up and ran with her to the ambulance.
Baez is not related to Darisabel Baez.
"I don't remember touching one step," he said. "I went out the front door. It seemed like so many people outside who had nothing to do with this. I looked at her. That's when it really hit me. I was holding her up to my chest so no one could see her. I covered her just to shield her. I didn't want no one to see her."
Baez said he placed the limp girl in the back of the ambulance.
"I rubbed her hand trying to give her any bit of life I could," he said. "That's when I saw her (finger) nails were gone."
In the ensuing murder investigation, officers found blood spatter on the wall next to Darisabel's bed, which consisted of a sheet, two large blankets and a baby blanket on the floor.
Officers also found two clumps of hair in the area of that bedding.
In the kitchen, investigators documented the girl's clothes lying in a pile and another clump of hair.
Officers Daniels, Baez and Roger Nestor told the jury they had passed a man using a cell phone who was leaving the building when they first entered the rowhome.
After Darisabel was rushed from the scene, county control contacted patrol supervisor Sgt. Roy Kohler and told him that Johnson, the boyfriend of the girl's mother, was on the phone with a dispatcher and was sitting at a laundromat around the corner.
"He was breathing very rapidly, almost hyperventilating," Kohler said.
Kohler said, as he escorted Johnson to his squad car, Johnson said, "I know I'm in trouble because of all the bruises all over her body. I beat her pretty bad with a belt yesterday."
White Rose Ambulance EMT supervisor Donald J. Sanders Jr. said he examined Johnson in Kohler's squad car.
He said Johnson told him, "I did it. I've been beating her with a belt for the last two or three days."
The first responding officers and Sanders all testified that the girl's mother, Neida Elizabeth Baez, 21, initially told them the girl fell in the bathtub.
When officers refused to believe that story, she told them the girl fell down the stairs.
Neida Baez pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and is awaiting sentencing. Her plea agreement calls for a sentence of five to 10 years in prison.
Doctor matches video game cord to 2-year-old girl's injuries
Defendant Harve Johnson asked to be excused from the courtroom before pictures of Darisabel Baez's injuries were shown.
By RICK LEE
Daily Record/Sunday News
Source: http://ydr.inyork.com/ci_13753902?source=most_emailed
Updated: 11/11/2009 10:14:01 AM EST
The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on 2-year-old Darisabel Baez said Tuesday the brutal and ultimately fatal beating she endured lasted at least 45 minutes.
And from the overall number of external and internal injuries she suffered, the person who administered the beating "would have to inflict an injury every 20 seconds," Dr. Wayne K. Ross testified.
York City Police and the York County District Attorney's Office believe Harve Lamar Johnson beat Darisabel, his girlfriend's daughter, with the cord from a video game controller, a child's hiking boot and his fists on April 6, 2008.
Johnson, 28, is on trial for first-degree murder. The commonwealth is seeking the death penalty. A possible plea arrangement seemed to be in the works Tuesday morning as the start of the second day of testimony was delayed.
Those negotiations did not result in an agreement, and Ari Weitzman, one of Johnson's attorneys, told Judge Michael J. Brillhart, "We're continuing with the trial."
Before testimony began, Johnson asked to be excused from the courtroom before pictures of Darisabel's numerous injuries were shown to the jury.
After some extended discussion and research, Brillhart determined the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had previously ruled a defendant being tried for a capital crime must remain in court.
Patti O'Brien, a forensic examination nurse, photographed Darisabel's injuries at York Hospital, where a trauma team began the child's initial treatment. Darisabel was transferred to Hershey Medical Center where she died the next day.
Johnson put his face down on the defense table and plugged his ears with his thumbs during O'Brien's testimony Tuesday morning. He resumed that position when Ross took the stand Tuesday afternoon.
O'Brien told the jury she documented more than 72 bruises and lacerations on the girl's body. She said the diagram she used to note the injuries - an outline of the human body - did not have enough space to include all the injuries.
While bruises literally covered almost all of the child's body, the most gruesome injuries were the numerous whip-like marks that transected her back and buttocks. At the end of every mark was a small rectangular bruise.
Forensic scientists from the Pennsylvania State Police crime lab told the jury blood was found on Darisabel's clothing, bedding and the sleeveless T-shirt Johnson was wearing April 6, 2008, and that DNA testing established it came from Darisabel.
The child's blood also was found on the plug end of the video game cord and the sole of the hiking boot.
Ross, who found 220 different injuries "head to toe" on Darisabel's body, said the video game controller cord exactly matched the bruises on the girl's back and the sole of the shoe matched the patterned bruise on her left cheek.
Ross said Darisabel also had bruises to the back of her heart and liver, her right lung and adrenal gland and her pancreas. He also found her brain was swollen and surrounded by blood and evidence she had been choked.
Ross said 150 of the girl's injuries occurred within 24 hours of O'Brien's photographs.
Neida Elizabeth Baez, the mother of a 2-year-old girl who was allegedly brutally beaten to death by Baez's boyfriend, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder Tuesday.
According to court documents, Baez, 21, expects to be sentenced to five to 10 years in state prison in exchange "for truthful testimony against (her) co-defendant."
source:http://ydr.inyork.com/ydr/crime/ci_13653023
found these photos of precious darisabel:
http://blog.citychurchyork.com/2009/04/justice-for-darisabel/
Pathologist explains: Darisabel died about 9:30 p.m. April 7, 2008, from multiple traumatic injuries, according to forensic pathologist Wayne Ross of the Dauphin County Coroner's Office. Ross performed an autopsy on Darisabel and testified for the prosecution.
He fleshed out O'Brien's testimony, detailing additional external and internal injuries including bruising on the genitalia, which he surmised resulted from pinching.
Ross had previously characterized Darisabel's death as the result of extensive torture doled out during a 45- to 60-minute period. Ross testified that her attacker would have to deliver a blow every 20 seconds to complete the task in that time frame.
He explained, too, that a bruise found on the back of Darisabel's heart likely was caused either from a severe blow to the back or one to the front. The latter would have been hard enough to push the heart back to the spine, causing it to bruise. Ross said children's skulls and ribs are flexible, which explains why no fractures were detected.
Darisabel also suffered a bruised lung, which caused respiratory failure; two interior brain injuries; and damage to the liver, pancreas and right adrenal gland caused by blunt force delivered at 20 mph.
Source: http://www.individual.com/story.php?story=110025564
UPDATE
The jury has just returned, giving Harve Lamar Johnson the death penalty.
Stay tuned for updates.
(From Mom in court)
“That’s when Mr. Harve Johnson grabbed her from me†and carried Darisabel to another room, Baez said.
‘She didn’t deserve it’: “He was hitting her … she was crying,†Baez recounted. “I told him … she didn’t deserve it. He told me to mind my business and go into the other room.â€
Baez said she went back to the living room.
“I could hear the whistle of the remote control†as it whipped through the air and hit Darisabel, she said, and at times could see Johnson wielding the device. During the beating, Darisabel cried for her mother and Baez cried for Johnson to stop, she said.
She didn’t summon help because “I was scared, ’cause Harve threatened he would hit me too,†Baez told jurors.
http://www.ydr.com/ci_15050937?source=most_emailed2-year-old's death prompts summit on child abuse
Event will focus on solutions to child abuse in the wake of the Darisabel Baez murder.
Not long ago, members of YorkCounts screened a video about the death of 2-year-old Darisabel Baez that documented the frustration, anger and sadness of those who investigated the child's murder at the hands of her mother's boyfriend in 2008.
The film, produced by York Daily Record/Sunday News photographer Jason Plotkin, sparked something. YorkCounts had been concerned about child abuse. Its 2009 annual report, detailing the steady climb in substantiated reports of child abuse in York County during the past decade, was cause for alarm. The report labeled the climb, contrary to the statewide trend, "among the most troubling in the entire report."
"I'm a believer in using a film, particularly one as powerful as this one, to get people thinking about an issue," YorkCounts spokesman Dan Fink said.
To that end, YorkCounts, along with the Daily Record/Sunday News, is sponsoring a summit of state and local officials to find solutions to the county's high rate of child abuse. The summit, titled "After Darisabel: Reducing Child Abuse in York County," will be June 10 at the York Jewish Community Center.
"Everything about that case just pulls at your heart," said Deb Chronister, director of York County Children and Youth Services. "It's tragic that an incident like this has to occur to bring the community
Read the rest here @http://www.ydr.com/ci_15050937?source=most_emailed
http://www.ydr.com/ci_15177348?source%3Dmost_viewed.20F88DA3D7D369F5BB70F372987EAE1F.htmlJudge responds to Darisabel's killer's appeal allegationsFrom death row, Harve Johnson, convicted in the death of 2-year-old Darisabel Baez, makes his first appeal to the state Supreme Court.
With Harve Lamar Johnson's death penalty appeal now before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, York County Senior Judge Michael J. Brillhart filed his required statement Thursday addressing Johnson's allegations of trial errors.
Johnson, 29, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in November for the fatal April 6, 2008, beating of 2-year-old Darisabel Baez. He filed his direct appeal in February alleging judicial, prosecutorial, procedural and police errors that prevented him from receiving a fair trial.
At the end of Brillhart's 71-page statement filed in York County court, the senior judge "respectfully urges affirmance of the verdict of first-degree murder rendered by the jury, as well as the judgment of sentence of death rendered by the jury."
Johnson had raised 18 issues challenging Brillhart's pretrial and trial rulings, including arguing: he was not properly advised of his Miranda rights; black and white pictures of Darisabel in the hospital "were prejudicial and inflammatory"; testimony about the toddler's injuries by a nurse and a pathologist were unnecessarily repetitive and cumulative; and that the court erred in not excusing him from the courtroom when photographs of Darisabel and her injuries were projected for the jury.
While those photos were being shown during his trial, Johnson put his head on the defense table, plugged his ears, and rocked back and forth and cried.
For the Supreme Court's review, Brillhart explained the legal reasoning behind each of his rulings. As he had before or at trial, Brillhart rejected Johnson's arguments now on appeal, including his decision not to dismiss Johnson from court while the pictures were shown.
Citing a state Supreme Court case, Brillhart said a defendant may waive his right to be present at trial "as long as he is not charged in a capital case.
"When charged with a capital offense, a defendant's right to be present at his own trial is transformed into an obligation because of the gravity of the potential outcome."
[...]
yeah it was hard to watch JessieMan, that was a hard video to watch...bless these people who gave more love to Darisabel in her last moments of life then anyone else ever did.