Posted on 07/23/2005 4:08:06 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Girlfriend sentenced to life in scalding death of toddler
Web-posted Jul 23, 2005
Judge gives mandatory sentence to 28-year-old
By KORIE WILKINS
Of The Oakland Press
PONTIAC - With tears streaming down her face, the woman convicted of scalding her boyfriend's daughter to death apologized, saying she never meant to harm the child. Letitia Johnson, 28, will spend the rest of her life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder earlier this month. A jury deliberated for two hours on the matter after the three-day trial. Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Rudy Nichols handed down the mandatory sentence in minutes.
"This was horrible," Nichols said Friday. "Horrible."
Jamila Lawrence, mother of the murdered child, Jasmine, sobbed as she asked why Johnson committed such an act.
"This is the worst thing a mother can ever go through," Lawrence said. "There is no excuse for what she did. None. (Jasmine) was a 21-month-old baby. She was no threat to you."
Authorities say Johnson, who also pleaded no contest to a charge of welfare fraud before her sentencing, was baby-sitting Jasmine. The little girl's father, Louie Phillips, and Johnson lived together in an Orion Township apartment.
Johnson will be sentenced on the fraud charge Aug. 5.
On the night of Dec. 18, authorities say, Johnson put Jasmine in a tub of scalding water and held her there while Phillips was at work. She removed the child from the tub, put petroleum jelly on her burns and put her in bed. Authorities say Jasmine died of dehydration caused by third-degree burns.
Johnson's attorney, Diana Bare, said her client has regretted that she did not seek help for Jasmine since the incident. She has shown remorse, Bare said.
"Miss Johnson has maintained the fact that this was not a deliberate action on her part," Bare said.
Johnson, mother of seven who was pregnant when she was charged with the crime, said she is sorry for what happened, but she did not mean to kill Jasmine.
"This was a total accident," she said. "I didn't hurt that baby. I didn't. I admit to my mistakes."
Johnson, however, had told a fellow inmate that she disliked Jasmine and resented that she was asked by Phillips to watch her. Lawrence has said she did not trust Johnson to watch Jasmine.
"If you didn't want to take care of her, all you had to do was call me," she said.
Lawrence also chastised Johnson for not thinking of her own children, who now have to grow up without a mother.
"And for what? So you can spend the rest of your life behind bars," Lawrence said. "Your kids should have been your number one priority. But it wasn't."
Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Brett Chudler said there is no excuse for Johnson's actions.
"What the defendant did to this baby, a helpless toddler, is unthinkable," he said.
So many sad facts here... 28, mother of 7... murderer... welfare fraud... living with boyfriend... makes you wonder what other facts the jury heard that aren't in the article like drugs or alcohol. I wonder what will happen to her poor kids.
Sickening. I don't buy that it was unintentional. First, with 7 kids even a stupid person would figure out how to run a bath at a proper temperature. Second, as soon as the baby hit the scalding water, she would have screamed and any idiot would take her out immediately, leaving her not with 3rd degree burns all over, just some relatively minor burns. May this woman burn in hell.
High school dropout. Seven bastard children by four men. Welfare fraud. Child murderer.
Somewhere in America, a kollege professor will claim racism and white male hegemony were the cause of this mentally deranged walking humanoid factory.
Why do these scum allowed to remain alive?
Well put. Too bad she already has procreated.
"cause of this mentally deranged walking humanoid factory."
I remember many years back on the David Suskind show there was a woman on welfare etc. with 20 children by many men. David said she was a human baby factory. She went ballistic on the show, claiming no one could tell her what to do with her body.. and on and on.. Go figure.
The full flowering of the Leftist agenda.
I would have asked "If you didn't hurt that baby, what mistakes are you admitting to?"
"That baby" / "That woman" ...sounds rather Clintonesk doesn't it?
BWAHAHA!!! Yeah right! More likely they'll be pawned off on relatives who already have their hands full or turned over as wards of the state and passed around from foster home to foster home, eventually turning into criminals themselves.
It would be nice to be wrong once in a while but I suspect the future ain't looking too bright for Johnson's 7+ children.
That's my biggest problem with abortion in this country is that the people who should get them don't.
the dregs of society
Aren't toddlers too young to have girlfriends?
No mention of her ever having cooked any of her 8 illegitimate children - only her boyfriend's kid. The good news is that she'll probably be 40 by the time she gets out, which will put a time limit on how many more litters she has.
Actually, since she had seven checks coming for 7 kids AND she was defrauding the welfare system AND she kills children, she is an overachieving leftist! Call it the Socialist version of a hat trick.
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