Thread: IL:Jury finds mom guilty beating daughter to death -more

This poor little girl. What a twisted tale.


Jury finds mom guilty for beating daughter to death
By Christy Gutowski | Daily Herald Staff

Published: 1/30/2009 6:24 PM | Updated: 1/31/2009 12:05 AM



A DuPage County jury deliberated three hours late Friday before convicting a Woodridge mother of murdering her 5-year-old daughter.

The panel also found Christina Beltran's crime particularly heinous and cruel, making her eligible for a life prison term.

Beltran clasped her hands in prayer as the tired jury members filed back into the hushed courtroom at 8:40 p.m. She softly wept after learning her fate.

The swift verdict brought to a close an emotional hard-fought trial.

Beltran, 24, confessed in two videotaped police interviews to slamming Evelyn's head against the floor July 6, 2007, in a fit of rage after the little girl soiled herself.

But Beltran later recanted those confessions and blamed her ex-boyfriend, Victor Jimenez, with whom she lived at the time. Beltran said she lied to police at Jimenez's urging because he and his parents could better provide for the former couple's then 15-month-old twin sons.

Prosecutors Alex McGimpsey and Ann Celine O'Hallaren argued Beltran resented Evelyn because the child was the product of a rape. They called the false-confession defense absurd and said, if true, her performance was worthy of an Academy Award.

"What mother would ever take the blame for the murder of her own child and then place her other children in the hands of the person she claims is responsible?" O'Hallaren said. "Does that make any sense to you? It wasn't about saving her babies. It was about saving herself."

Beltran and Jimenez testified. Both blamed the other.

Only one fact was without dispute - Evelyn suffered a horrible death after weeks of abuse.

A forensic pathologist ruled the brown-eyed girl died of blunt force head trauma. She had several bruises, cuts and scars covering most of her 41-pound body and new and healing injuries that included a fractured elbow and ribs. She also had a ruptured intestine from an untreated stomach injury that experts said caused her to defecate.

Jimenez, a 27-year-old landscaper, has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

The defense team, Jaime Escuder and Robert Miller, argued he was the real killer. They attacked the credibility of the police investigation, which was absent of forensic testing of possible evidence inside the apartment to try to determine who was telling the truth.

The defense portrayed Beltran as an easily manipulated, battered woman who only had two years of schooling and was in the country illegally.

Her lawyers noted it was Beltran who prodded Jimenez to help her bring Evelyn here from Mexico. The child arrived in March 2007, about four months before her violent death.

It also was Beltran who took Evelyn to the hospital. After learning her daughter died, Beltran began hallucinating, suffered an emotional breakdown and tried to kill herself. She spent one week in a mental hospital.

"Justice for Evelyn is Victor Jimenez behind bars," Escuder said in a passionate plea. "You can't fix what happened to Evelyn. Your verdict will not resurrect her. All a guilty verdict would do is create another injustice because Christina Beltran is innocent. That's the truth."

But, there were inconsistencies in Beltran's testimony.

For example, Beltran said Jimenez beat Evelyn's head against the bathroom wall after the child had undressed and was in the shower. But Evelyn's "heavenly angel" shirt contained several strands of her long, dark hair - a fact that supports Jimenez's testimony that Beltran pulled Evelyn's hair and struck her head against the living room floor while the child was clothed.

"Her memory cries out for justice in this courtroom," McGimpsey said. "It's justice because the evidence is overwhelming and beyond any doubt."

Several jurors declined to comment Friday while leaving the Wheaton courthouse. They rejected a lesser verdict of involuntary manslaughter. DuPage Circuit Judge George Bakalis will sentence Beltran later this year. She has been in the DuPage County jail since her July 2007 arrest.

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=268490

So much for that poor little girl's "better life" in the United States provided by her illegal alien mother.

Here I thought Illegal Aliens are coming here to make a better life for themselves and their children.

Silly me.

That is truly a shame.......did not even have a chance at life......too many of these cases happen already in the USA

Originally Posted by Ratbstard

Here I thought Illegal Aliens are coming here to make a better life for themselves and their children.

Silly me.

Well mom now has free room, board and medical for life I am not sure even if they had stayed in their own country that this poor little girl would not have died a horrible death at her mothers hands. The world has become a very sick place.

If this is true...that the boyfriend asked her to take the rap cause he was legal and she wasn't...


Mother tells court that boyfriend killed her daughter

By Art Barnum | TRIBUNE REPORTER
January 30, 2009

The mother of a slain 5-year-old girl broke into tears more than a dozen times as she professed her innocence for more than an hour at her trial Thursday.

"Did you kill Evelyn?" Assistant DuPage County Public Defender Jamie Escuder asked 24-year-old Christina Beltran of Woodridge.

"No," she replied, gasping for breath and wiping away tears.

"Who did?" he asked.

"Victor," she said, referring to her boyfriend, Victor Jimenez.

Beltran is accused of beating Evelyn to death on July 6, 2007. The girl died of head trauma. An autopsy indicated numerous signs of physical abuse.

Prosecutors have accused Beltran of slamming Evelyn to the floor of her Woodridge apartment after becoming angry that the girl soiled herself. Prosecutors said Beltran became pregnant when she was raped by her mother's boyfriend in her native Mexico and had felt animosity toward her daughter.

Beltran confessed during two police interviews, officials said. But Thursday, through an interpreter, she claimed that Jimenez, her boyfriend and the father of the couple's twin boys, talked her into confessing to the crime because he was a legal resident and could better care for their sons because she is not legally in the U.S.

Jimenez, who testified last week, has not been charged.

Beltran told the jury Thursday through tears that Jimenez often struck her and that she was hiding from him in a closet when she heard him push the girl's head into a wall four times.

The trial is expected to end Friday. If convicted, Beltran faces up to 60 years in prison.

Originally Posted by fedupinwaukegan

If this is true...that the boyfriend asked her to take the rap cause he was legal and she wasn't...

Originally Posted by fedupinwaukegan

Mother tells court that boyfriend killed her daughter

By Art Barnum | TRIBUNE REPORTER
January 30, 2009

The mother of a slain 5-year-old girl broke into tears more than a dozen times as she professed her innocence for more than an hour at her trial Thursday.

"Did you kill Evelyn?" Assistant DuPage County Public Defender Jamie Escuder asked 24-year-old Christina Beltran of Woodridge.

"No," she replied, gasping for breath and wiping away tears.

"Who did?" he asked.

"Victor," she said, referring to her boyfriend, Victor Jimenez.

Beltran is accused of beating Evelyn to death on July 6, 2007. The girl died of head trauma. An autopsy indicated numerous signs of physical abuse.

Prosecutors have accused Beltran of slamming Evelyn to the floor of her Woodridge apartment after becoming angry that the girl soiled herself. Prosecutors said Beltran became pregnant when she was raped by her mother's boyfriend in her native Mexico and had felt animosity toward her daughter.

Beltran confessed during two police interviews, officials said. But Thursday, through an interpreter, she claimed that Jimenez, her boyfriend and the father of the couple's twin boys, talked her into confessing to the crime because he was a legal resident and could better care for their sons because she is not legally in the U.S.

Jimenez, who testified last week, has not been charged.

Beltran told the jury Thursday through tears that Jimenez often struck her and that she was hiding from him in a closet when she heard him push the girl's head into a wall four times.

The trial is expected to end Friday. If convicted, Beltran faces up to 60 years in prison.

Apparently evidence showed enough to contradict the mother's testimony and back up his.

HOWEVER: This doesn't mean that he isn't not guilty of also having abused this poor baby himself......only that he's not the one who killed her.

And the big question is why, if he witnessed this incident, or any other incidents of abuse, being inflicted by the mother, he did not stop her?

What kind of person just stands by and allows this to happen? Unless, of course, there is abuse issues on the part of that individual too.

My opinion is that because he failed to protect this girl, he should be brought up on charges of some sort as well and SOMEONE had better keep an eye on those other kids, now in his custody.

How many more people in this country must die before our laws are enforced?

...woman who only had two years of schooling...

Great! I used to think we wanted the best and brightest as immigrants. Apparently we're getting the opposite (at least in terms of illegal ones.)

The defense portrayed Beltran as an easily manipulated, battered woman who only had two years of schooling and was in the country illegally.

Her lawyers noted it was Beltran who prodded Jimenez to help her bring Evelyn here from Mexico. The child arrived in March 2007, about four months before her violent death.

Sorry, but lack of education has nothing to do with murder. Being illegal might, because people who come here illegally usually end up committing more serious and violent crimes.

Too bad that Beltran prodded Jimenez to bring the child here from Mexico. The poor girl would have lived if she wasnt bought into the country illegally. Authorities would have been able to keep better track of families who came into the country LEGALLY.

I hope that "mother" receives the harshest sentence available.

welcome to ALIPAC chiwatcher