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Sentenced: Kendall Chick, 4 Suffered Blunt-force Trauma To Her Head, Neck & Abdomen

Sugar Cookie

Sugar Cookie

Veteran Member
Bold Member!
December 15, 2017

The 4-year-old girl allegedly murdered last week by a 43-year-old Wiscasset woman showed signs of previous traumas, and suffered multiple severe injuries that included a fatal blow to her abdomen, court records show.

Shawna L. Gatto of Wiscasset is charged with the murder of Kendall Chick, who died of blunt-force trauma to the abdomen but also had serious injuries to her head, neck and limbs.

Gatto was caring for Kendall in the home they shared with the girl’s grandfather, Stephen Hood, and two of Gatto’s grandchildren. Kendall had been placed there by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services in January, according to a police affidavit.

Emergency personnel responded on Dec. 8 after Gatto called 911 and reported that she found Kendall unresponsive in a bathtub a few moments after stepping away from the girl to get her a drink of chocolate milk. Kendall, who was cold to the touch and pale when EMTs arrived, was rushed to Mid Coast Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

An autopsy later said she had suffered significant blunt-force trauma to her head and neck, in addition to her abdomen.

According to a police report and an application for a search warrant filed with the court, Gatto’s account of what happened did not align with the forensic evidence gathered from the trailer home where Gatto lived, or with the evidence found during Kendall’s autopsy.

Gatto told investigators that shortly before Kendall became unresponsive, the girl had vomited and had diarrhea. Gatto said she had placed Kendall in the bathtub to clean her up. Gatto said that Kendall then asked for a drink, so Gatto walked a short distance to the kitchen, but when she returned Kendall was unresponsive and she called 911. Lincoln County dispatchers received Gatto’s call for help at 4:30 p.m.

“She was fine like 10 minutes ago,” Gatto said to the dispatcher during the emergency call, the police report said.

There also was physical evidence in the home that seemed to point to prior instances of violence against the girl. Evidence technicians found red-brown stains that presumptively tested positive for blood on sheets of a bunk bed where Kendall slept and on the bathtub where Kendall had been placed near the time of her death. Technicians also documented blood near a round indentation in a wall in Kendall’s bedroom that seemed to correspond with the size of Kendall’s head.

Blood also was found on paper towels in a wastebasket in the bathroom and on a towel in a laundry hamper in the kitchen. A sponge found in the bathtub also tested positive for blood.
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https://www.pressherald.com/2017/12...thout-bail-on-charge-of-murdering-4-year-old/
Kendall%20Chick.jpg
 
The bath tub did it. She was totally fine 10 minutes ago. What the fuck ever, bitch. That baby was placed with her too. Thrown from one abusive situation to another. :(
 
Sugar Cookie said:
Gatto was caring for Kendall in the home they shared with the girl’s grandfather, Stephen Hood, and two of Gatto’s grandchildren. Kendall had been placed there by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services in January, according to a police affidavit.
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Ugh...so this poor baby was placed there to get away from what?? Then the people who were supposed to keep her safe end up killing her. I'd bet Gatto's own grandchildren are fine....she just didn't want to take care of someone else's baby. Hope they throw her in jail and toss away the key.
 
If she was 'fine ten minutes ago' then why would she be cold to the touch, you bitch?

From the evidence it sounds like she was killed in the bedroom and placed in the bath tub as an excuse. :(

That poor, poor little girl. Removed from one situation to live with her grandfather, and his... whatever the fuck missy murderess up there was, killed the poor kid. :(

RIP, Kendall, you never had a chance.
 
The "Shower of Power" fails again. I'm beginning to doubt it's miraculous ability to wake the dead.
 
Miracle bath failed again!
What did the other children see? Was that a house full of terrified children even if only one Child Was the target?
[doublepost=1520724798,1520697923][/doublepost]When I was about 5 yrs old.. I remember being terrified and cringing under the bedclothes. My mother was shouting at 5AM and throwing dishes in the yard as my father drove off to work.

When I left for school that morning. there were china shards all over the yard. I was terrified. When I returned home The yard was clean. Everything was fine. Years later I mentioned this event to my mother. She said it was all a joke, they were getting new china , hated the old china and just having fun at 5am. And "didn't I get it? they were laughing" hell no! I was 5 yrs old. All I heard was my mother screaming and throwing china while I cowered under the blankets in the dark
A silly amusing moment for my parents (so mother claimed) terrified me because I had no clue what was going on.
My childhood was fine. Decent parents. No serious complaints. But I always wonder about so many other children cowering under a blanket with a real terror and real horrible parents, not just eccentric parents like mine.
 
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Prosecutors have begun laying out their case against the caretaker of a 4-year-old girl, who they say was responsible for her death as part of “child abuse syndrome.”

The trial began Monday morning for Shawna Gatto in a case that led to calls for change in Maine’s child welfare system.

Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber says Gatto was the primary caretaker for 4-year-old Kendall Chick at the time of the girl’s death. Kendall was the granddaughter of Gatto’s fiancé and placed in the couple’s custody by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Prosecutors say Gatto beat the 4-year-old to death. They displayed photos of her body, pale white and covered in bruises with one of her eyes swollen shut.

"You will hear there's a head-sized defect in the drywall in Kendall's bedroom with a transfer stain of her blood and one of her head hairs embedded in the wall,” Macomber said.

Macomber says Kendall had 15 to 20 distinct injuries to her head and face and that the medical examiner will testify it was blunt force trauma to the abdomen that ultimately killed her.

"In his opinion, Kendall was the victim of child abuse syndrome,” Macomber said.

In an interview played in court, Gatto claimed the girl’s injuries were from trips and falls. She told police Kendall was clumsy.

“Kendall would have a black eye. Shawna would tell Steve that Kendall ran into a coffee table,” Macomber said.

Gatto waived her right to a jury trial last year, so the verdict in her case will be decided by a judge. The defense chose to hold their opening statements until the state finishes arguing its case.
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www.wmbfnews.com

Woman accused of beating fiance’s 4-year-old granddaughter to death

Prosecutors say the 4-year-old had 15 to 20 distinct injuries to her head and face and that the medical examiner determined her cause of death was blunt force trauma to the abdomen.
www.wmbfnews.com
 
@Satanica
Defense attorneys for Shawna Gatto on Friday aggressively questioned Kendall Chick’s grandfather, Stephen Hood, about his actions during the time the 4-year-old lived with them and suggested he was just as likely as Gatto to have killed her.

On Wednesday, Hood testified for the prosecution, saying he had not seen the fatal injuries to Chick occur but that Gatto had assured him the girl had fallen or otherwise injured herself. The day before, Dr. Mark Flomenbaum, the state’s medical examiner, testified that the 4-year-old died from blunt force trauma to her head, a “catastrophic” traumatic injury to her abdomen and chronic “child abuse syndrome.”

On Friday, Hood listened as defense attorney Philip Cohen read a series of text messages Hood had sent Gatto in the months before Chick’s death. “You and I have no life,” he wrote in one. “The life we have sucks.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he wrote in another. “Get rid of her? How? But then we’d have to carry the guilt.”

Cohen said Hood and Gatto planned to become “empty nesters” and were going to “take it easy,” but suddenly found themselves raising three small children.

Hood, who declined the offer an attorney during his testimony, told the court that he had only ever spanked the children once, and on Friday reiterated, “One slap on the ass. That was all it took to get their attention.”

But when Cohen asked, “Was it with a belt?” Hood said, “There was one time.”

Explaining his text message, Hood told Alsop that if Chick needed special care — Gatto told detectives that Chick was “a drug baby” and had behavioral problems — he wasn’t sure he could take care of her.

Continue reading at link (recommended)
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bangordailynews.com

Defense in murder trial points to grandfather as suspect in 4-year-old’s death

Defense attorneys for Shawna Gatto on Friday aggressively questioned Kendall Chick’s grandfather about his actions during the time the 4-year-old lived with them and suggested he was just as likely as Gatto to have killed her.
bangordailynews.com bangordailynews.com
 
@Satanica
A superior court justice on Tuesday found 44-year-old Shawna Gatto guilty of depraved indifference murder in the Dec. 8, 2017, death of 4-year-old Kendall Chick at their Wiscasset home.

Superior Court Justice William Stokes delivered his verdict just before 2 p.m. at the Capitol Judicial Center, where less than a month ago he presided over Gatto’s bench trial.

Stokes described the abuse inflicted by Gatto as “outrageous, revolting, shocking and brutal,” and said “such conduct can only be described as torture.”

Stokes said Gatto’s insistence that Chick injured herself was “inherently incredible” and “utterly unworthy of belief.”
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bangordailynews.com

Judge finds Maine woman guilty of murdering 4-year-old Kendall Chick

A superior court justice on Tuesday found 44-year-old Shawna Gatto guilty of depraved indifference murder in the Dec. 8, 2017, death of 4-year-old Kendall Chick at their Wiscasset home.
bangordailynews.com bangordailynews.com
 
A killer behind the ‘revolting’ torture murder of a disabled four-year old has failed in her bid to be freed from prison...

Shawna Gatto, 45, was ordered to serve out the remainder of her 50 year sentence for the murder of Kendall Chick at Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court in Bangor Tuesday.

Gatto had tried to argue that prosecutors couldn’t prove she was behind the fatal beating of the little girl, who was her lover’s granddaughter, and who was battered so hard her pancreas was torn, but Justice Joseph Jabar upheld her April 2019 conviction, and said in his ruling:

‘The duration of the abuse, its violence, the helplessness of the child, and Gatto’s denial of medical attention to the victim were properly characterized by the trial court as “cruel” and as constituting “torture.”‘

Tuesday’s ruling means Gatto will now be behind bars until 2069 for the December 2017 murder of Kendall at her granddad’s home in Augusta, Maine.

Gatto, who was engaged to Kendall’s grandfather at the time of the murder, and acted as her primary caregiver, texted her lover shortly before the murder saying:

‘I’m so fucking done with this kid.’

After Kendall died, Gatto tried to claim the youngster had fatally-injured herself by falling face-first onto a coffee table, before soiling herself over the bathroom floor. She said numerous other injuries found across Kendall’s body after she died had been caused by the little girl’s own clumsiness.

Kendall who was born developmentally-disabled to an opioid-addicted mother, had injuries so awful, a juror at Gatto’s trial had to ask for an image showing her wounds to be taken down..
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metro.co.uk

Carer who tortured disabled girl, 4, to death fails in bid to be freed from jail

Shawna Gatto's attempt to be freed for the 2017 murder of four year-old Kendall Chick failed on Tuesday, meaning she will be behind bars until 2049
metro.co.uk metro.co.uk
1589454143814.png
 
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Wonder whatever came of all the uproar and calls by the governor for complete review and overhaul of Maine’s child welfare system. As I recall there was another torture death of a girl around this same time there.

Heads were going to roll! People were going to be held accountable damn it!

Then. Nothing. As. Always.
 
A woman serving a 50-year prison sentence for the fatal beating of a 4-year-old girl is seeking a review in hopes of reducing her prison term.

Shawna Gatto contends poor communication with her defense attorney resulted in her not fully understanding all her legal options and the evidence against her in a case that caused outrage and led to changes in the state's child welfare system, the Portland Press Herald reported.

Had she known her options, Gatto would have pleaded no contest, presumably resulting in a lighter sentence, her attorney said.

Superior Court Justice William Stokes, who presided over the trial, held a virtual hearing Tuesday on the motion.

Gatto was convicted of depraved indifference murder in the death of Kendall Chick in December 2017 in Wiscasset.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld the conviction and sentence, concluding the child's abuse was tantamount to torture.

Gatto's new attorney is asking Stokes to allow her to change her plea from not guilty to no contest, which would mean she accepts that the evidence was sufficient to convict her while not admitting guilt.

“Presumably her sentence would be less than 50 years,” said Dylan Boyd, her court-appointed attorney.
The minimum sentence for murder is 25 years. The maximum is life in prison. Maine has no death penalty.
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I do not understand how the grandfather was not charged. He had to see the bruises an the injuries Kendall had.

Strangers showed more love and compassion for this girl than her family ever did.





1711037046668.jpeg

I hope this bitch gets the most painful cancer and suffers.





Last Name, First Name, Middle Initial:Gatto, Shawna Lyn

Earliest Custody Release Date:12/31/2060

Offense (Class):MURDER (M)
Sentence:50 Years

If she is released in 2060 she will be about 86 years old and that still will be too soon.

I get she was overwhelmed but it was her choice to care for her grand kids and Kendall.

She also did not take any of the assistance that state offered her which makes me thinkshe wanted that child in her home soi she would have someone to take their frustrations out on.

If she attempts to appeal again I hope it is denied again.
 
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