Court hears ghastly details of toddler's beatings; mother on trial

[spaminator]

Court hears ghastly details of toddler's beatings; mother on trial
By Karena Walter ,The Standard
First posted: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 08:42 PM EDT | Updated: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 08:50 PM EDT
HAMILTON, Ont. -- On the final morning of Marissa Whalen's life, the toddler was carried to the bathroom by the woman who beat her daily.
Rainbow Hill testified Tuesday that she and her lover, Roseanne Whalen -- Marissa’s mom -- were in the middle of yet another argument when she decided to give two-year-old Marissa a bath. She carried the toddler to the bathroom and reached out to turn on the water.
"I dropped Marissa face-down into the bathtub," Hill told court as Whalen, on trial for second-degree murder, wept from the prisoner’s box.
"When I went to pick her up, her eyes were rolling into the back of her head."
It was July 29, 2011, two days after Marissa's second birthday. Hill said she carried the dead or dying girl out of the bathroom. "She was limp," Hill said.
"I believe she was unconscious."
The couple had a problem. The girl, Hill testified, was "black and blue" from daily abuse. The police couldn't be allowed to see that.

Court hears ghastly details of toddler's beatings; mother on trial | Ontario | News | Toronto Sun

 

[spaminator]

'It happened so fast,' witness tells murder trial in death of toddler
By Karena Walter ,The Standard
First posted: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 07:25 PM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 11:04 PM EDT
HAMILTON, Ont. -- Everything happened so fast after two-year-old Marissa landed in the bathtub.
Rainbow Hill says she picked her up. Called the child's name. Yelled for the toddler's mother, Roseanne Whalen. Laid the girl on the floor.
Someone gave Marissa mouth-to-mouth, but Hill can't recall who. It may have been her, it may have been Whalen.
Both women, she agreed, were in hysterics, weeping and crying.
But before they even knew for sure that the toddler was dead, a call to 911 to come to their Fort Erie, Ont., home was cancelled.
"You knew she was dead?" Whalen's lawyer Geoffrey Hadfield asked Hill in the second-degree murder trial of Roseanne Whalen on Wednesday.
"I don't know," answered Hill, the Crown's first witness.
"It's possible the child was alive?" the lawyer asked.
"Anything's possible," Hill said. "We both believed she had passed."

'It happened so fast,' witness tells murder trial in death of toddler | Ontario | News | Toronto Sun