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Police say boy lied in 911 call
The 12-year-old is accused of beating a toddler to death.
Associated Press
Published January 8, 2008
LAUDERHILL - A 12-year-old boy accused of fatally beating a 17-month-old cousin with a baseball bat because she interrupted a TV cartoon can be heard on a 911 tape saying the girl had become ill in the shower.
The boy and his uncle ask for paramedics while yelling is heard in the background of the chaotic and often unintelligible four-minute tape released Monday. He never mentions hitting the girl, Shaloh Joseph.
The boy, who was babysitting the girl, told the 911 operator he had given her milk, but she was crying. He said he first tried to put her to bed and then gave her a shower.
"I put warm water, and then I found her eyes closed," said the boy, whose name has not been released. "And then I gave her another shower, and now she vomited."
The incident happened Friday afternoon when the boy was left in charge of Shaloh at her home on a modest street here. Police say the boy's statements on the 911 call were a lie and that he later confessed.
"That was a completely fabricated story," Lt. Mike Cochran said. "It was almost as if, on the fly, he was trying to justify what happened."
Police say the boy was actually watching a cartoon - detectives aren't sure which one - when the baby started crying.
"He became enraged she was interrupting the television," Cochran said. "It's really sort of surreal."
The boy grabbed a wooden baseball bat, police said, and hit the girl multiple times. She was pronounced dead later and was found to have suffered several skull fractures.
The boy is a seventh-grader who stands 4 feet 11 and weighs 90 pounds. His attorney, Gordon Weekes, said he wears braces and is very close to his family.
"He's trying to hold himself together," Weekes said.
Prosecutors are mulling whether he should be prosecuted as an adult. Assistant State Attorney Maria Schneider said prosecutors still had much work to do before determining what course to pursue in the case. But the boy's public defenders said it belonged in the juvenile system.
He had no prior offenses, according to police, and a Department of Children and Families spokeswoman said that agency had not been involved with either the victim or the suspect.
Police said another child, a 10-year-old, was also left in the boy's care along with the baby, though police have not identified that child's relationship to the victim or suspect. Cochran said parents of both the suspect and the victim were working at the time.
[Last modified January 7, 2008, 23:38:01]
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