Mom admits killing son in toss off footbridge

[Coleus]

Mom admits killing son in toss off footbridge

She agrees to a term of 18 years in prison

Friday, January 24, 2003

BY RUDY LARINI
Star-Ledger Staff

Her family had told her that if she ever needed them to care for her son, they would be there for her.

But she didn't turn to them late that Saturday night in June 2000 when she wanted to go out and couldn't find anyone to watch the toddler.

So she took him to a footbridge over the Passaic River in Paterson and  tossed him into the water just above the Great Falls.

Yesterday, in a courtroom in Paterson, Martita Gonzalez admitted her crime and agreed she should spend at least the next 15 years of her life behind bars.

Charged with murdering 15-month-old Anthony Valentin, the 20-year-old Paterson woman pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter, accepting an offer by the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office for a maximum sentence of 18 years in prison.

If Superior Court Judge Donald R. Reenstra accepts the plea agreement and imposes the 18-year sentence, Gonzalez would have to spend 85 percent of the term -- or 15 years, three months and 19 days -- in prison before becoming eligible for parole. Reenstra set sentencing for Feb. 25.

Outside the courtroom after the plea, Gonzalez's aunt, Milagros Santana, said the young mother was a troubled woman suffering from schizophrenia.

"She is sick, mentally ill," Santana said. "A mother who is sick would not know what she is doing."

She said the baby's father, Anthony Valentin, had asked Gonzalez if she wanted to have an abortion when she became pregnant, but she said "no."

Santana said her family offered to help Gonzalez with the boy if she ever needed it.

"If you ever feel you can't take care of your son, we'll take over," the aunt said she told Gonzalez. "If you ever feel trapped, that you can't handle the baby, remember I'm here.

"But she said, 'No, Milagros, I will never give up my baby. I love my baby,'" Santana said. "She's hurt. She's hurt inside. Imagine such a pain that she is going through."

Gonzalez, with her dark hair flowing down the back of her blue prison jumpsuit, showed no emotion yesterday as she calmly answered questions about the crime from her lawyer, Anthony Fusco, Passaic County Senior Assistant Prosecutor Walter Dewey and the judge.

She answered "yes" when Reenstra asked her, "When you threw the baby off the bridge, you knew the baby was going to drown or die?"

Fusco, noting that Gonzalez has an IQ of only 77, said he could have pursued an insanity defense in taking the case to trial. But it would have been "rolling the dice," he said, with Gonzalez facing at least 30 years in prison if convicted of murder. She earlier had rejected a plea offer calling for a 25-year sentence.

"The philosophy of juries today and their approach to these cases may not be as sympathetic as we'd like them to be," Fusco said.

He said he could offer no motive for Gonzalez's crime.

"We will not know the complete answer to, 'Why did she do it,'" he said. "I don't think any doctor will be able to get into her mind completely."

Dewey said the prosecution would have offered evidence at trial that Gonzalez wanted to see her boyfriend and go dancing the night she killed her son, but could not find anyone to watch him.

"When she left the house, she was unhappy that no one would take care of the baby," he said, adding the prosecution was prepared to prove "the fact that she didn't want to be burdened by this child anymore."

But he said the prosecution would have faced its own risk in taking the case to trial and trying to prove Gonzalez was not legally insane.

"One of the arguments is that someone who would do something so terrible to her child must be crazy," the assistant prosecutor said.

Dewey said he had not been in recent contact with the baby's father and did not seek his approval of the plea offer.

"He was more interested in supporting the defendant than in getting justice for the child," Dewey said.

A month after Gonzalez killed her son, New Jersey became the eighth state to enact a law -- the Safe Haven Infant Protection Act -- that allows a person to leave an infant less than 30 days old who has not been abused or neglected at a police station or hospital with no questions asked and no threat of prosecution.

The law, passed after a spate of widely publicized cases in which mothers killed their newborns, would not have applied to Gonzalez's 15-month-old son.

[Toirdhealbheach Beucail]

"The philosophy of juries today and their approach to these cases may not be as sympathetic as we'd like them to be," Fusco said.

One is reasonably sure that he is glad his mother didn't throw him off the bridge....

That funny philosophy that killing children is wrong...yes, I can see where the jury might not be as sympathetic.

[Coleus]

This is what happens when a country and society accepts the culture of death.

This Waterfalls is the second-highest falls on the east coast--second only to Niagara Falls. What a way to kill your baby. Sad thing is, is that if she would have had a partial-birth abortion, everything would have been OK. You can drown a baby with saline in utero and that's OK, nice world in which we live. We must outlaw abortion so people could start respecting life, all life.

It was a long way to the bottom, I can't see how she could have done this.

http://www.tablecloth.com/great_falls_of_paterson.htm

http://www.wildnj.com/njm5-2.htm

http://www.rt23.com/history/Paterson_NJ-silk_city.shtml

[Coleus]

[annyokie]

This is horrible. A fifteen-month old would be well aware that his MOTHER is THOWING HIM OFF A BRIDGE!!

I hope she gets the death penalty, the evil b*tch that she is.

May God rest that poor baby's soul.

[Coleus]

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2MzQ2NzYw

Gonzalez's lawyer, Anthony Fusco>>>

Side Note: Fusco is a Former Republican Candidate for Congress in his district who held a "meet and greet" at his law office for Democrat James McGreevey for NJ Governor and dumped Bret Schundler. He is presently a REPUBLICAN Passaic County Freeholder candidate, go figure. Nice Republican party we have in NJ.

[Clinging Bitterly]

Well the kid was only 15 months old. Not much different, really, than a late term abortion. I thought we didn't put people in prison for that sort of thing anymore.

Dave in Eugene

[freedumb2003]

I have waited all my life to see a case where a lawyer would not take it. For a defendant so henious and inhuman that only Satan himself would associate with the accused.

Manson? Lawyers lining up. His disciples? Same deal
Kazinski? It's not like he BOMBED anybody -- he's just misunerstood.
Bundy? Yeah, he killed but it isn't like he MEANT to.
Johnny bin-Walker? Traitors need love too.

I would bet $100 at 1 to 2000 that if bin Laden was alive that some WASP lawyer would defend him.

There is no end of the gene pool too shallow to produce a lawyer to defend the indefensible.

[Toirdhealbheach Beucail]

Just prior to reading this article, I put my 15 month daughter to bed. My three year old is perched on my lap as I write this. The idea that anyone could do this to their own child is more repugnant than I can possibly imagine.

And now, my daughter wants to type...


vgffgffggfmmmmmmmmmmmmmmfmmcxxhnnnndxxxttxeyeexyxentxxxxeeeeee

[annyokie]

I just went upstairs and kissed my boys (six and thirteen).

After what she did to that poor child, I can only hope that they put her in the general population and publicize her crime.

Kiss your babies for me, please.

[StarFan]

I have a knot in my stomach after reading this and upset I didn't trust my instincts and simply ignore as the title said it all.

"The philosophy of juries today and their approach to these cases may not be as sympathetic as we'd like them to be," Fusco said.

He's as SICK as he claims his client is. For an 'insane' woman, she was certainly in touch with reality not accepting a plea bargain calling for 25 years. Why she is calling the shots is beyond me.

[SamAdams76]

Eighteen years is an extremely lenient sentence for premeditated, cold-blooded murder. Having a low IQ is not an extenuating circumstance in my opinion. Even a mentally-retarded person knows that murder is wrong. How could they even consider such a plea-bargain?

[RGVTx]

And now, my daughter wants to type... vgffgffggfmmmmmmmmmmmmmmfmmcxxhnnnndxxxttxeyeexyxentxxxxeeeeee Leave it to a child to bring a ray of sunshine at the darkest moments. Thanks for the smile, little one.

[webber]

When America accepted the "Abortion Rights" Law (The Right To Kill Your Baby before it can take it's firt breath law) It welcomed the "Angel Of Death" in. This is just the tip of the iceberg because as America becomes more and more immoral, things like this will become common place, and people will eventually just shrug it off and say, "This is news? C'mon it's happening all the time. It's time to move on."
WARNNG: If you are handicapped in any way, or over 60, or maybe the wrong minority (Jews, Christians) you may be the next target, not by unloving mothers, but by your beloved liberals who are already foaming at the mouth at the thought of being able to do the same thing to you LEGALLY!

[cpforlife.org]

" One dark day in January of 1973, SATAN donned judicial robes! Robes flowing, gavel in hand, he swept onto the floor of the United States Supreme Court. He presided over the most atrocious travesty of justice that ever took place, and he declared - we now have the 'right' to murder the most innocent, in what should be the safest place in the universe for them! And since then, tens of millions of babes have been assassinated in their own mothers' wombs! The darkness indeed grows deeper."

Fr. John Corapi S.O.L.T.

When SCOTUS gave licence to murder babies before birth, from that moment on anything would eventually become possible. More proof.

God Save The Republic

[firewalk]

....shaking my head & bump

[agrace]

I agree. Right now I'm listening to my son - who is 2 tomorrow - play with his almost 6 year old sister in the next room. I can't even imagine what would have gone through a 15-month-old's head as his own mother did this. And his father was more interested in supporting her than seeking justice for his son. Disgusting.

[Coleus]

It's too bad that most people do not see the trend.

[Coleus]

The way things are going, it will be legal to do something like that in the future. Why should you child become in between you and your date? What an inconvenience!