12-Year-Old Charged With Murder Of Toddler Aniyah Batchelor. Update 09/05/12: Child Convicted!!

Thursday, July 5

A 12-year-old boy has been charged with second-degree murder in the fatal beating of a two-year-old foster child who was staying at his Fort Washington home, Prince George’s County police said.

Police spokeswoman Julie Parker said the toddler, Aniyah Batchelor, had been placed by a state agency with a family in the 1800 block of Taylor Street. There were no adults in the house at the time of the incident, police said, and a 15-year-old girl who lives there was watching the younger children.

Parker declined to comment on any motive, and said the 12-year-old is being held in a juvenile detention facility.

Police said they were first called to the home at 12:09 p.m. Tuesday by the 12-year-old’s father who reported that Aniyah was unconscious. Under instruction from a 911 call-taker, the man administering CPR, while emergency workers headed to the home. Aniyah was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.

An autopsy conducted Wednesday showed that Aniyah died from “blunt force trauma,” Parker said.

“Through the course of the investigation detectives learned that the 12-year-old had beaten the child repeatedly,” Parker said. She said no weapon was used in the beating but declined to comment further.

Police said Aniyah lived in the house with a couple and their three biological children — the 12-year-old boy, the 15-year-old girl and a 4-year-old girl. Parker said the court had ordered Aniyah into the foster system.

Police Capt. Joseph R. Hoffman said police have not previously been called to the house and have had no history with the family.

Pat Hines, a spokesman with the Maryland Department of Human Resources, the parent agency overseeing the county department of social services, declined to say how long Aniyah had been in the home or whether any prior problems had been reported, saying such matters are confidential.

Hines said the state can discuss some details about a child in foster care if there is “an allegation of abuse and neglect,” resulting in a death. He said he consulted a state assistant attorney general who concluded that Aniyah’s case does not involve such an allegation.

“Privacy issues related to people in care are very sensitive,” Hines said, explaining the state’s “conservative reading” of the terms “abuse and neglect” in this case.

Police and prosecutors in Maryland can decide to charge a child over age 14 as an adult, authorities said.

In this case, involving a 12-year-old defendant, prosecutors can not charge as an adult initially, but can ask a juvenile judge to send the case to adult court. It was not clear whether that would happen.

“At this point, homicide detectives are talking with the state’s attorney’s office about the status of the 12-year-old,” Parker said. “At this point he has been charged as a juvenile. That could change.”

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When will it ever quit?

Cunningham, 25, of Landover said her other
children are a 5-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy. Last fall, she
said, she had custody of Aniyah and her other daughter, but her son was
being cared for by a relative. Cunningham said she was living in an
Adelphi apartment at the time. One day in November, she said, the
relative brought the 3-year-old boy to visit her, and a horrible
accident occurred.
Cunningham said someone — not her — mistakenly
put the boy in a tub filled with scalding water while trying to give him
a bath. “He got all burned,” she recalled, sobbing loudly on the phone.
“His skin was coming off real bad.”
As a result of that incident,
Cunningham said, a Prince George’s County judge removed the two girls
from her custody. She said that the 5-year-old girl went to live with a
foster family in the District and that Aniyah was placed with the family
in Fort Washington.
Foster children in Prince George’s are the
responsibility of the county’s Department of Social Services and its
parent agency, the Maryland Department of Human Resources. Police
referred all questions about the Fort Washington family to Pat Hines, a
spokesman for the state human resources agency. Citing privacy rules,
Hines would not discuss Aniyah or the foster parents’ history of caring
for children under state supervision.
Cunningham said she usually
visited with Aniyah on Thursdays at a county social services office.
Over the months, she said, she got to know the foster parents, and she
thought well of them until this week. “I want to know how can they let
kids watch kids and let my baby get beat,” she said, crying on the
phone.
Meanwhile, on Taylor Street, a woman named Jean Price spoke
through tears about the 12-year-old boy, who was a neighbor. She said
he would routinely stop playing basketball in his driveway to help her
take groceries out of her car.
“I loved him so much,” she said. “He was the sweetest child you’d ever want to know.”
She
said she and her husband, Jim Price, have known the family for about
eight years, and she described the parents and youngsters as
“wonderful.”
“Their whole family is so special,” Jean Price said,
adding that the 12-year-old boy sometimes talked with her about his
grades. When she asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, she
said, he replied, “I want to be successful.”
“I told him you’re already on your way because you have the character that stands out.”
Police
said the boy is the first preteen accused of murder in the county since
2006, when a 12-year-old boy was charged as a juvenile with stabbing
and beating to death his mother and 9-year-old brother. Prosecutors
later said that the boy, who did not have a previous arrest record,
pleaded “involved” — the equivalent of guilty — in juvenile court.
Under
Maryland law, youths ages 14 to 17 can be charged with certain crimes
as adults at the discretion of prosecutors, and upon conviction those
teenager can be sentenced to an adult prison. In such a case, the burden
is on the teenager to convince a judge in adult court that the matter
should be handled in juvenile court.
After a juvenile court trial
or plea, even a teenager who has committed a murder cannot be held in a
detention facility beyond his or her 21st birthday.
With suspects
younger than 14, like the Fort Washington youth, the case must start in
juvenile court. In most instances, if prosecutors want the case moved to
adult court, they must convince a juvenile court judge that the
youngster’s criminal history is so heinous and extensive that
rehabilitation in the juvenile system is not an option.
Although
police would not discuss any criminal record involving the 12-year-old
boy, Capt. Joseph R. Hoffman said police had not been summoned before to
the house and had no history of involvement with the family.
Asked
whether authorities would seek to have the case moved to adult court,
Parker said police and prosecutors are conferring on that question. “At
this point, he has been charged as a juvenile,” she said, but “that
could change.”
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Am I the only one that thinks there is much more to this story?

No, you are most assuredly not!

By Paul Duggan, Published: July 6

A 2-year-old girl in Fort Washington is dead, the victim of a horrendous crime, authorities say. Yet in the weeks ahead, the public can expect to learn little if anything from state and local officials about the people involved in the case — about the slain toddler, about the family that took her in as a foster child and about the 12-year-old boy who is charged as a juvenile in her fatal beating.

Aniyah Batchelor will be buried soon. Her foster parents, who have three children of their own — including the alleged killer — have declined to talk publicly about her death. Prince George’s County police and prosecutors and the social-services agencies that were responsible for the girl say they are barred by law from disclosing details about the family, the victim or the suspect, now locked in a youth detention center.
“Privacy issues related to people in care are very sensitive,” said Pat Hines, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Human Resources, which oversees foster children statewide. Citing confidentiality laws, he declined to comment on how closely the Fort Washington family was monitored by social-services workers and whether officials knew of any emotional problems afflicting the boy.

At the Prince George’s state’s attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the youngster, spokesman John Erzen also cited privacy statutes: “The first thing I will tell you is, because the [charge] has been filed in juvenile court, it really ties my hands in terms in what I can and can’t say.” He said he was even barred from disclosing the date of the boy’s next closed-door appearance before a judge.

Confidentiality is a hallmark of juvenile-justice systems across the country, part of a philosophy that emphasizes rehabilitation over punishment and public shame. It’s legally possible that the boy’s case eventually will be moved to adult court and prosecuted openly. But if it stays in juvenile court and he is convicted or admits that he killed the girl, he could be locked up only until his 21st birthday.

The concept extends to the news media, including The Washington Post, which in most cases does not publish the names of suspects who are charged as juveniles.

Aniyah’s mother, Stephany Cunningham, 25, of Landover, said she lost custody of her two daughters in November after another of her young children, a boy, was severely burned in a bathtub of scalding water. The boy, who already had been removed from her custody, was visiting Cunningham at the time, she said.

Aniyah was placed in a neatly kept split-level house in the 1800 block of Taylor Avenue in Fort Washington. Without disclosing names, police described the foster parents as a man and a woman with three children — the 12-year-old boy and girls ages 15 and 4. With the adults not home Tuesday morning, police said, the teenage girl was in charge of the younger children when Aniyah was killed.

“Our hearts go out to the families,” the state Department of Human Resources said in a statement. The department oversees the county Department of Social Services, which monitors foster children locally. The state agency said the screening of prospective foster parents includes background checks and interviews of all family members and “references from schools on all school-age children in the home.”

The charge filed in Aniyah’s death, second-degree murder, is a lesser offense than first-degree murder because it does not include premeditation. And that legal distinction could be crucial to the future of the 12-year-old suspect.

Under Maryland law, for a boy his age to be prosecuted as an adult, he would have to be charged with a crime that, if committed by an adult, would carry a possible life prison term. For an adult in Maryland, first-degree murder is punishable by up to life in prison, but the maximum sentence for second-degree murder is 30 years.

As authorities continue gathering evidence in the case, however, they could decide to upgrade the charge against the boy to first-degree murder. “Certainly, as an investigation continues, charges can change,” said Erzen, stressing that he was not commenting on the boy’s case specifically. “Charges can be dropped, charges can be added.”
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Maryland starts to talk about a toddler’s death

By Editorial Board, Published: July 9

ANIYAH BATCHELOR normally would have been at day care while her foster parents were at work. But the extreme heat had closed the child-care facility and the Prince George’s family’s 15-year-old was babysitting when 2-year-old Aniyah was beaten to death last Tuesday, allegedly by a 12-year-old boy. Maryland’s secretary of human services, Theodore Dallas, made that disclosure Monday in a welcome break from the official silence that has surrounded this horrific death. Mr. Dallas promised a thorough investigation and said that the results, as allowed by law, would be shared with the public.

“No matter how unpleasant the details, an open review of the circumstances of a child’s death is always in the best interest of the children we serve,” Mr. Dallas wrote Monday in a letter to the editor that appears on this page. We couldn’t agree more and said as much in an editorial that criticized state and county officials for not being more forthcoming about the handling of Aniyah’s case. She died of “blunt-force trauma”; the son of her foster parents has been charged as a juvenile with second-degree murder.

Privacy and confidentiality laws are intended to protect the interests of a child. But in the event of a death, they serve only to obscure the actions of officials. It’s important to know whether this tragedy could have been prevented or whether there is a need to tighten procedures. Mr. Dallas’s letter detailed the procedures Maryland uses to screen and monitor foster families. These include background checks for adults, a home safety study, foster care training and monthly visits. “Our initial review of the Batchelor case shows that all of these steps were successfully completed and that the home study, background checks and monthly visits did not reveal any danger to the child in the home,” Mr. Dallas wrote. Foster parents are allowed to work outside the home with proper child care, and Maryland law permits 15-year-olds to care for younger children.

Funeral services for Aniyah are planned for next Monday; the 12-year-old boy is being held at Maryland’s Cheltenham Youth Facility pending an Aug. 2 court hearing. There is likely no good answer as to why this tragedy occurred, but it is critical to know how it occurred.

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Letter to the Editor
An open inquiry into Aniyah Batchelor’s death

Published: July 9

The Prince George’s County tragedy that was the subject of the July 9 editorial “A toddler’s death in foster care” deeply affected all of those involved, including those of us at the Maryland Department of Human Resources. The Post urged state and county officials involved in the case to thoroughly and openly investigate this heartbreaking death to determine if it was preventable. I agree.

While the law limits some of the information that we can disclose, I can say that an investigation is underway into Aniyah Batchelor’s death and that we will share the results of it as allowed by the law when it is completed. No matter how unpleasant the details, an open review of the circumstances of a child’s death is always in the best interest of the children we serve.

Before a family can become a foster family in Maryland, it must go through a thorough screening process. All adult members of the household must pass a background check and a home safety study, and the parents must complete foster care training. Further, department social workers must visit foster children monthly to ensure their safety.

Our initial review of the Batchelor case shows that all of these steps were successfully completed and that the home study, background checks and monthly visits did not reveal any danger to the child in the home.

Aniyah was placed in foster care in November 2011. It is our understanding that, like many children throughout Maryland, she was normally in day care during the day. Due to the recent extreme weather, however, her day care facility was closed. While the family’s 15-year-old was watching Aniyah, the 12-year-old child in the household allegedly caused the injuries that led to Aniyah’s death.

Our hearts go out to the families involved. We will continue to work with local officials as the investigation unfolds and will disclose the information that we are permitted to by law.

Theodore Dallas, Baltimore

The writer is Maryland’s secretary of human resources.

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Mother Responds to Toddler's Beating Death

Stephany Cunningham said her 2-year-old daughter had been in foster care since November 2011.

By Sonia Dasgupta

The mother of a child beaten to death in a foster home says she had gotten to know the family and previously thought well of them.

Stephany Cunningham's daughter, Aniyah Batchelor, 2, who died on July 3, had been in foster care with a Fort Washington family in the 1800 block of Taylor Street since November, according to The Washington Post.

The 12-year-old son of the foster parents is charged in the death.

Cunningham, 25, who lives in Adelphi, has two other children, a 5-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy. The 5-year-old and Aniyah were both placed in foster care, she said, after one of her children was burned by scalding water in a bath, the Post reported.

Cunningham said she was not the person bathing the child.

There is one open case against Cunningham in family court, according to Maryland court records.

“I want to know how can they let kids watch kids and let my baby get beat,” Cunningham told the Post, crying on the phone, the paper reported.

The 12-year-old boy is being charged with second-degree murder, according to Prince George's County police.

The foster couple's children were home alone, with a 15-year-old girl in charge, police said. Another 4-year-old child was also home during the attack.

On Monday, Police Cpl. Clinton Copeland said there was no other update at this time about the case. When asked whether the foster parents would be charged, Clinton referred Patch to Pat Hines, a spokesman for the state human resources agency. Hines could not be contacted in time for this report.

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A 15 yr old is plenty old enough and responsible enough to baby sit for a few hours. I read through this thread again and I can't tell if the 12 yr old was a foster child or one of their "own" children.

I think he was a foster child IIRC.

The way I read it he is the foster parents bio son who lives somewhere else???

OK..would have to go back and read but you are most likely correct. Thanks, Slys!

Boy charged in killing didn’t want toddler in house, prosecutor says

August 4, 2012privateofficernews

Fort Washington MD Aug 4 2012

The 12-year-old Fort Washington boy charged in the beating death of a 2-year-old foster child who was staying with his family told investigators he did not like the girl and did not want her in his home, a prosecutor said in court Thursday.

The boy, who is charged as a juvenile with second-degree murder, told detectives that he hit Aniyah Batchelor “at least six times,” and the beating lacerated her liver, pancreas and adrenal gland, Assistant State’s Attorney Yvonne Cunningham said. Psychologists and psychiatrists who examined the boy found no apparent mental problems, Cunningham said, and concluded that he is “very intelligent.”

This suggests someone who absolutely knew what he was doing,” Cunningham said.

The details, which emerged during a Prince George’s County juvenile court hearing to determine whether to delay the boy’s case, provide the most thorough look yet into what could have motivated the attack. In essence, Cunningham told Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Herman C. Dawson that the boy was jealous of the toddler his family had been taking care of for months, and she questioned his parents’ ability to control him around his biological siblings.

The boy, shorter than 5 feet and wearing a hooded sweatshirt, said nothing at the hearing. The Washington Post generally does not name juveniles who are charged with crimes.

During the hearing, the boy was flanked by 14 family members and supporters, including a few children. As Dawson ordered that he remain held until his Sept. 4 trial, some family members sobbed and said: “It’s not right. He didn’t do it.” They declined to comment afterward.

Raouf M. Abdullah, the boy’s defense attorney, argued during the hearing that prosecutors’ evidence against his client was scant, and that their case would largely come down to statements the boy made to detectives after he endured several hours of “very offensive interrogation tactics.” He said the toddler’s injuries might have occurred during the boy’s father’s efforts to revive her, and that the boy initially denied involvement in the death.

“The injuries could very well have happened during the CPR,” Abdullah said. “There is no evidence that [the boy] is the person who caused this problem.”

He said the boy carried a 3.1 GPA and worked around his neighborhood picking up trash for $5 a week.

Police have said previously that the boy’s father called 911 the afternoon of July 3 after finding the toddler unconscious. The father had been “summoned home” by his biological daughter, 15, who had been watching the toddler and her two biological siblings — the boy and a 4-year-old girl, police have said.

A preliminary autopsy determined that the toddler died of blunt-force trauma, police have said. Cunningham said in court that investigators were awaiting a final autopsy, and that was why she asked to postpone the trial.

The toddler had been placed with the Fort Washington family in November, after she was removed from her home because of “allegations of physical abuse” related to one of her brothers, according to records provided by Maryland’s Department of Human Resources in response to a Public Information Act request.

Stephany Cunningham, the toddler’s mother, said in a previous interview that the incident was an accident in which someone — not her — put her 3-year-old son in a tub filled with water that scalded him during a bath.

Before the toddler’s placement, the Fort Washington family had successfully completed a “home study” in which foster-care workers reviewed family members’ criminal and medical records, interviewed references and conducted several home visits, according to Department of Human Resources records. The family also successfully completed foster-parent training, according to the records.

Foster-care workers visited the toddler’s foster home — meeting with the child and the family — seven times after she was placed there, most recently on June 21, according to the records. They also met with the family at the Prince George’s social services department’s office four times and accompanied the toddler and her foster parents during a doctor visit when she had a cold, according to the records.

In court on Thursday, prosecutor Cunningham questioned safety at the home. She said that prosecutors thought the boy’s father was “somewhere in the home when Aniyah was found unconscious” — a statement that drew vigorous head shaking from members of the boy’s family and contradicts the initial police account. That, combined with the seriousness of the crime, made prosecutors concerned that “the parents are not able to control the respondent,” Cunningham said.

Abdullah, who disputed the characterization, declined to comment after the hearing. Apparent members of the toddler’s family also declined to comment, referring questions to Cunningham.

Source:Washington Post

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September 4, 2012 | 8:00 pm

Ben Giles
Staff writer - Prince George's County
The Washington Examiner

Defense attorneys argued Tuesday that a confession given by a 12-year-old boy, whom Prince George's County police charged with second-degree murder in the beating death of his 2-year-old foster sister, should be removed as evidence in the county's case against him.

Attorney Raouf Abdullah said the teen was interrogated by detectives without the permission of his mother, father or grandmother, who all testified Tuesday they were unaware the boy was being questioned privately by a detective on July 3 -- the day 2-year-old Aniyah Batchelor was found unresponsive by her foster father at the family's home in Fort Washington.

Prince George's County Circuit Court Judge Sherrie Krauser is considering the motion to suppress the statement, which police videotaped in an interrogation room.

Witnesses said the videotape showed the boy being questioned by Detective Denise Shapiro for about 98 minutes. At about the 60-minute mark, Shapiro said, the boy told her they sometimes play-fight and that he hit Aniyah "at least six times."

Shapiro said she asked the boy to show her how hard he punched Aniyah by having him punch her own hand.

Abdullah argued that Shapiro prodded the boy into giving an incriminatory statement and that he should not have been questioned without the consent of his parents, who were giving statements to police at about the same time.

"What happened to him on July 3 of this year is a veritable clinic for how to violate a person's Fifth Amendment rights when they're accused of a crime," Abdullah said.

Prosecutors said the police's interview with the boy was a standard part of their fact-gathering mission, and that his Miranda rights were not violated since he wasn't taken into custody.

"The evidence is going to show that this was a confession," said Assistant State's Attorney Wesley Adams. The interrogation was done "quietly, calmly and with compassion," he said.

Police said Aniyah, who was living in the Fort Washington home because of a court-ordered placement, was beaten repeatedly by the boy that day. No weapon was used, police said.

The boy had no prior run-ins with the police and was described by his father as a model student and son.

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By Matt Zapotosky, Published: September 5

A 12-year-old Fort Washington boy on Wednesday was convicted in juvenile court of involuntary manslaughter in the beating death of a 2-year-old foster girl living with his family.

The boy had admitted to a detective that at least six times he hit Aniyah Batchelor, who suffered internal injuries, Prince George’s Assistant State’s Attorney Wesley Adams said in court. He said that the beating occurred July 3, when the boy was home with Aniyah and his two biological sisters, ages 4 and 15.

Both students attend Northwestern High School, police said. The condition of the injured student was not immediately clear, and police were searching for a suspect.

The Washington Post generally does not name juveniles who are charged with crimes.

The boy — who initially faced a more-serious second-degree murder charge — did not admit guilt as part of his so-called Alford plea but acknowledged that prosecutors had sufficient evidence. Raouf Abdullah, the boy’s attorney, said his client agreed to the plea to spare his own family and Batchelor’s family an emotional trial, although he still disputed some of prosecutors’ accusations.

“This ends this trauma for the entire family,” Abdullah said.

Aniyah was placed with the boy’s family in November after she was removed from her home because of “allegations of physical abuse” related to one of her brothers, authorities have said.

Police had previously said that the boy’s father found Aniyah unconscious and called 911. The father had been called home by his 15-year-old daughter, who was watching the other children, they said.

During Wednesday’s hearing in Prince George’s County, the boy, who stood barely taller than his attorney’s shoulders, wore a red sweatshirt and athletic shorts.

When Judge Sherrie L. Krauser listed the charges against him and asked if he knew what they meant, the boy responded, “Yes. Well, not really.” When the judge asked him to explain what his plea meant, he was unable to do so.

Prosecutors had said previously the boy did not like Aniyah and did not want her in the home.

After Wednesday’s hearing, Abdullah disputed those accusations, saying the boy admitted to hitting Aniyah under “duress” and that he never told a detective that he didn’t want her in the home.

He said that the boy — who was involved in soccer, basketball and the science fair, his parents said at an earlier hearing — was “a delightful child” and that the case “essentially amounts to like an accidental death.”

Technically, the boy was found “involved,” the juvenile court term for a conviction. He will be held at the Cheltenham Youth Facility until a disposition hearing Oct. 23.

Although he could face incarceration until he is 21, he will first be evaluated by doctors to determine a rehabilitation and treatment plan, Abdullah said.

As deputies led the boy out of the courtroom in handcuffs, he cried and tried to lift his arms to wipe tears from his face. After the hearing, the families of the boy and Aniyah declined to comment.

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Boy, 13, Convicted in Death of Foster Sister Is Ordered to Group Home
Judge Sherrie Krauser rejected prosecutors' request to have the juvenile placed in a detention facility.
By John Davisson

A Fort Washington boy convicted of fatally beating his two-year-old foster sister was ordered to serve an indefinite amount of time in a therapeutic group home on Tuesday.

Circuit Court Judge Sherrie Krauser rejected prosecutors' request to have the juvenile sent to a detention facility, opting instead to remove him from his home and assign him to a closely monitored form of foster care.

According to prosecutors, the 13-year-old boy—who was 12 at the time of the incident—repeatedly struck young Aniyah Batchelor on July 3 at his house in the 1800 block of Taylor Street. The girl had been placed in foster care at the address following allegations of abuse by members of her own family.

When the boy's father came home to find Batchelor unresponsive, he reportedly called 911 and attempted to revive the toddler using CPR. She was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

An autopsy report showed extensive signs of abuse, prosecutors said, including dozens of bruises to Batchelor's head and body and multiple internal injuries.

In September, the boy entered a so-called Alford Plea to the charge of involuntary manslaughter, meaning he did not admit guilt but conceded that there was sufficient evidence to obtain a guilty verdict.

According to a statement from Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks, Judge Krauser included the followed stipulations in Tuesday's order:

Treatment foster placement in a home with no other children under the age of 18 nor anyone else in the home with a physical or mental defect

Weekly individual therapy sessions for the defendant

Individual family therapy sessions for his family

Joint therapy sessions with the defendant and his family as may be recommended by his therapist

Contact with his family will be supervised and only allowed at the recommendation of his therapist

Access to crisis management

“The judge had a very difficult decision to make in this case and she did everything she could to keep him out of proximity to other children," Alsobrooks said.

A status and placement hearing is scheduled in the case for Nov. 15 at 1:30 p.m.

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