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.

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