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Thread: Joshua Stepp Sentenced to LWOP in 2009 NC Slaying of Infant Stepdaughter

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    Joshua Stepp Sentenced to LWOP in 2009 NC Slaying of Infant Stepdaughter

    Prosecutors seek death penalty after infant fatally abused

    Wake County prosecutors announced today that they plan to seek the death penalty against a man accused of sexually assaulting and killing his 10-month-old stepdaughter.

    Joshua Andrew Stepp, of 1223 Silver Sage Drive, Apt. 303, faces first-degree murder and first-degree sex offense charges in the Nov. 8 death of Cheyenne Emery Yarley.

    Stepp told a dispatcher in a 911 call that the child choked on toilet paper, but, according to a medical examiner's report, she died from "abusive head trauma."

    The report also said injuries were found in the child's ear, vagina and anus.

    In a status hearing this morning, prosecutors told Judge Ronald Stephens that investigators believed the infant had been on the floor with her head pushed into the carpet.

    (source: News & Observer)

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    Raleigh man facing death penalty in stepdaughter's death

    Raleigh, N.C. — Attorneys for a Raleigh man accused of sexually abusing and killing his 10-month-old stepdaughter said Monday that their client is responsible for the child's death but that the crime doesn't warrant the charges.

    Joshua Andrew Stepp, 28, is set to go to trial this month on charges of first-degree murder and first-degree sex offense of a child in connection with the Nov. 8, 2009, death of Cheyenne Emery Yarley.

    If convicted, Stepp could face the death penalty.

    He told a 911 dispatcher that Cheyenne choked on toilet paper, but an autopsy report found that she had been beaten to death. Medical workers also observed injuries to the child's ear, face and other areas of her body.

    During a pre-trial hearing Monday morning, defense attorneys said that Stepp is guilty of injuring the child and that that they plan to argue that he committed a lesser degree of homicide.

    Jury selection, which also began Monday, is expected to take two weeks, and attorneys estimate that testimony will last approximately three weeks.

    Defense attorneys also asked Superior Court Judge Osmond Smith that potential jurors not be questioned regarding their views on the death penalty, but Smith denied the motion, saying that attorneys must know whether jurors will be able to follow the law as it applies in the case.

    A de-facto moratorium on the death penalty has been in place since early 2007 because of legal challenges to how executions are carried out in North Carolina, where 158 people are on death row.

    The last person sentenced to death in Wake County was Byron Lamar Waring, 24, who was convicted July 9, 2007, in the November 2005 stabbing death of a Raleigh woman.

    The last case tried in which Wake County prosecutors sought the death penalty was the murder trial last year of Samuel James Cooper, who was convicted of killing five people in a series of robberies across Wake County. A jury sentenced him to life in prison.

    According to the Wake County District Attorney's Office, there are 36 homicide cases on the court docket in Wake County, five of which have been designated as capital cases. Decisions are still pending on others.

    http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/9875021/

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    Trial starts for stepfather accused of killing infant

    The trial of a Raleigh man accused of murdering his infant stepdaughter is underway at the Wake County Courthouse.

    Prosecutors and defense attorneys have spent more than a month picking jurors for the death penalty case against 28-year-old Joshua Stepp.

    During jury selection, his attorneys conceded he is responsible for the death of 10-month-old Cheyenne Yarley, but they say he is not guilty of first-degree murder.

    In November 2009, Stepp lived at an Raleigh apartment on Jones Franklin Road with his wife, her daughter Cheyenne, and his toddler daughter.

    Stepp told police and paramedics that Yarley had choked after eating toilet paper and had fallen from a couch. But prosecutors have told jurors there is no way her death could have been caused by either.

    In January 2010, an autopsy report released by the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner stated that 10-month-old girl died from abusive head trauma and that she was also sexually assaulted.

    Related Content

    Story: Autopsy: Infant beaten to death
    Story: Man charged in infant murder

    On Monday, one of Stepp's attorneys told jurors that the only person who was there when Cheyenne was injured would tell them about it. The attorney pledged to put Stepp on the stand to answer questions in detail about what happened to a child they say he loved.

    The defense attorney also talked about Stepp's Army service, saying he had to leave active military duty in order to be a single parent to his daughter.

    They say posttraumatic stress from his time in Iraq, combined with alcohol and prescription drugs, played a role in Stepp's one-time abuse of the child.

    Meanwhile, prosecutors have to prove to jurors that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel in order for Stepp to be put to death.

    What they described to jurors Monday morning - the rape and beating of an infant - would appear to fit that legal definition of capital murder.

    Due to the details of the case being extremely graphic and gruesome, the trial will not be streamed live on ABC11.com

    http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?se...cal&id=8320069

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    Defense blames PTSD for infant's beating death

    An Iraq war veteran facing a possible death sentence for the death of his 10-month-old stepdaughter was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and was self-medicating with alcohol and prescription painkillers when he beat her to death inside their Raleigh home nearly 2 years ago, his defense attorney told jurors Monday.

    Attorney Thomas Manning said that Cheyenne Emery Yarley's death was a "perfect storm" of substance abuse and PTSD that "blew up" as Joshua Andrew Stepp tried to quiet and comfort the crying child.

    "This attack was a singularity in Josh Stepp's existence. That's what the evidence will show," Manning said. "Never before had it happened – had anything happened."

    Stepp, 28, is on trial for 1st-degree murder and 1st-degree sex offense in Cheyenne's Nov. 8, 2009, death. He called 911, saying she had choked on toilet paper, but an autopsy found she died of abusive head trauma.

    Prosecutors said in opening statements that Stepp sexually assaulted, beat, shook and slammed the girl's face into the carpet while her mother was at work, leaving her face like a "grotesque scarlet mask."

    "There was a constellation of injuries inflicted upon this child over an hour – not a moment, not a second, but an hour," Wake County Assistant District Attorney Adam Moyers said. "He was supposed to take care of her, and he murdered her."

    There was no indication that she choked on toilet paper, and Stepp's story that she had also fallen off a couch and suffered a rug burn didn't make sense to first responders.

    "The suffering was such that this baby girl, who barely had teeth, bit her own tongue, lacerating it," Moyers said. "The physical damage to her brain was more than her life could sustain."

    There was also evidence of sexual assault, Moyers said, and blood on Stepp's underwear matched Cheyenne's.

    The defense disputed the sex assault charge, saying there were no internal injuries and no blood or DNA on Stepp's body. The injuries that the state contends are signs of sexual abuse, Manning said, happened while his client was changing a dirty diaper.

    "There's no dispute that (Stepp) injured this child and that his infliction of injuries killed this child. The 'why of it' is very much the issue," Manning said.

    Stepp had been an infantryman and weapons expert with the U.S. Army and was training soldiers in the Iraqi military when members of his unit were killed by an improvised explosive device, Manning said, and Stepp had to help collect the body parts of his fellow soldiers.

    "He never complained … but along the way, as a result of things that happened earlier in his life and while in the Army, he developed the symptoms of PTSD," Manning said.

    Instead of seeking treatment at a VA hospital, he turned to alcohol and painkillers.

    "He was trying to get back into the Army, and he was managing whatever was wrong with him – and doing quite well," Manning said.

    Stepp had been drinking heavily and taken 4 painkillers on Nov. 8, 2009, when his wife went to work, leaving him to care for the child.

    "There's no excusing what happened, certainly, and there is no pity being asked here," Manning said. "But understanding what happened and why – and getting it right and finding the correct crime, which Josh Stepp has committed, is very much at issue."

    "When all the evidence is in from the state," he continued, "we're going to be asking you to convict him of the offense, which the evidence and all of the evidence supports, not what the state contends."

    (source: WRAL News)

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    The mother of an infant who Raleigh police say was sexually abused and killed at the hands of her stepfather said Tuesday that she had second thoughts about going to work at Fort Bragg on the night her daughter died Nov. 8, 2009.

    "I actually had thought about driving back home, but I didn't," Brittany Yarley testified Tuesday in her ex-husband's first-degree murder trial. "He had advised me that she had fallen off the couch and that she had a rug burn and that it wasn't that serious."

    It was a "very different scream," Yarley recalled, almost as if 10-month-old Cheyenne Yarley were "extremely hurt," but Joshua Stepp had been able to handle situations like that before, she said.

    It was the last time, she said, she heard her daughter's voice.

    Stepp called 911 a short time later, reporting that his stepdaughter had choked on some toilet paper inside their Raleigh home.

    Doctors at WakeMed in Raleigh worked for more than 15 minutes to try to revive her but were unsuccessful. By then, Yarley said, she had talked to Stepp a second time.

    "The defendant got on the phone and said it was really bad," she said. "At that time, a nurse on site had picked up the phone and had advised me that I needed to come to WakeMed."

    When she arrived at the hospital, Yarley said, Dr. Sammy Saad told her they noticed injuries to child's body that could have been from sexual trauma and head injuries that weren't consistent with a fall from a couch.

    "Her mom's first response was Josh would not do that," Saad, a pediatric emergency physician, testified, "and we ended the discussion at that time. She didn't have any further questions."

    Prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty against Stepp, 28, say he sexually assaulted, beat, shook and slammed Cheyenne's face into the carpet for nearly an hour, leaving her with a scarlet mask of burns and injuries.

    Defense attorneys don't deny that he killed the girl but say Stepp, an Iraq war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, can't explain why he did what he did. He had been drinking at the time and had taken a heavy dose of painkillers.

    Stepp, they say, will tell his story to the jurors when he testifies on his own behalf.

    They do dispute the sexual assault claim. They say Cheyenne was injured when a frustrated Stepp had to repeatedly change her dirty diaper. Defense attorneys say investigators found none of the girl's DNA on Stepp, even though her blood was found in his underwear.

    Saad, though, said that, based on his experience, that the bruising and tearing in her anal and genital regions were consistent with sexual trauma and that they could not have been caused with a finger or knuckle, as the defense claims.

    When he confronted Stepp, he said, Stepp said nothing.

    "I told him that Cheyenne died and that she had some injuries that are not consistent with falling off the couch. I explained there was some evidence of physical and sexual abuse," Saad said. "His face was down, as far as I remember, and he walked away."

    (from WRAL News)

    I guess PTSD is not an excuse to rape and murder children. So f-ing sad. So sad.

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    RALEIGH -- Joshua Stepp had few words today for why he repeatedly rubbed his 10-month-old stepdaughter's face into the carpet the night the infant died.

    In a murder trial that carries the possibility of the death penalty, Stepp took the stand today in his defense.

    The 28-year-old Army veteran is accused of sexually assaulting and murdering Cheyenne Yarley while in his care on Nov. 8. 2009.

    Though Stepp has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder or sexual assault, his attorneys acknowledge that he is responsible for Cheyenne's death.

    Stepp was arrested after calling emergency dispatchers on that November Sunday in 2009 to report that Cheyenne had stopped breathing. He told dispatchers the infant had choked on toilet paper, then told emergency responders that she had fallen off the couch and suffered rug burns.

    Both prosecutors and defense attorneys say those were lies.

    Prosecutors contend that Cheyenne died during a sexual assault and severe beating that left her tongue nearly lacerated and her head so swollen that prosecutor Adam Moyers said her face resembled a "grotesque scarlet mask."

    Prosecutors rested their case today, the sixth day of testimony.

    Stepp, who served in Iraq, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder — a factor that his attorneys have said will play largely in his defense.

    Stepp had mixed a cocktail of prescription drugs and alcohol in the hours before Cheyenne's death. He had been out at a sports bar to watch a 49ers game and when his wife, Cheyenne's mother, called him to come home to take over child care duties between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., he was feeling woozy and having difficulty driving.

    When he arrived home, Stepp testified today, he could not recall precisely where he encountered his wife or how long he spent with her, but he remembered her as being angry at him because he was late getting home and she was going to be late to work.

    Stepp's 4-year-old daughter Mariah was inside the apartment with Cheyenne at the time. The TV was on and Cheyenne was screaming and crying.

    "I knew it was because her mom had just walked out the door," Stepp said.

    He picked up the child, bounced her up and down, offered her a bottle and checked her diaper. If nothing else worked, Stepp said, he put her in her crib by herself.

    Stepp testified that much of that day is a blur to him.

    "I can only remember, like, really intense parts," he said.

    When the child did not stop crying, Stepp left her on the floor in the master bedroom closet, his attorney said in opening statement. When she continued to scream and cry, he grabbed her behind her right ear, turned her over and pushed her face into the carpeted floor over and over and over again.

    When Stepp was asked why, he said:

    "The only way I can explain it is, I don't know, it just like happened, and then I'm there and I'm like, 'What the hell.'"

    Stepp talked about trying to put space between him and his stepdaughter after the incident.

    "I didn't want something to happen again," Stepp testified, his speech halting. "I didn't want to just lose it and end up hurting her again."

    But his older daughter called him back in. Cheyenne had a soiled diaper.

    "I had to go in and change her," Stepp said. "I didn't want to, but you can't just leave a kid in a dirty diaper like that."

    Stepp testified that when he put Cheyenne down to change her diaper, she was wriggling and kicking, trying to get away from him as he used wipes to clean her.

    "I was holding her legs up," Stepp said. "She was just screaming and flailing."

    Stepp said he did not sexually assault his stepdaughter.

    "Oh God no," he said to one of his lawyer's questions about that allegation.

    But he described getting toilet paper after changing Cheyenne's diaper, three or four times, and holding it under a bathroom faucet before returning to the bedroom where the child continued to cry.

    "I went back in the room and just shoved it in her mouth," Stepp said. "I thought maybe she'd be quiet."

    But she started choking, he said.

    "I remember trying to pry her mouth open," he said.

    He stuffed his fingers in, knuckle deep, trying to retrieve the toilet paper from her mouth. He was able to retrieve a big clump, he said.

    As he picked her up and held her, he noticed how shallowly she was breathing. He put her down, he said, but she did not recover. Her little body seized, he said.

    Stepp took the infant from room to room in the apartment as he and his 4-year-old hunted for his phone.

    Then he dialed emergency dispatchers.

    Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/08/...#ixzz1WYyiu1HI

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    Final arguments set in baby's death

    Defense attorneys representing Joshua Stepp, the Iraq war veteran accused of sexually assaulting and murdering his infant stepdaughter, rested their case Thursday.

    Closing arguments are set for Tuesday, after the Labor Day holiday.

    Stepp, who has acknowledged responsibility for the death of Cheyenne Yarley on Nov. 8, 2009, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and sexual assault.

    Facing the possibility of the death penalty, Stepp took the stand this week and described what happened that late-fall evening when the 10-month-old girl died.

    Stepp suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder - a factor that is the backbone of his defense.

    As an Army infantryman serving in Iraq in 2005, he saw people he served with blown up by car bombs and suicide bombers. The night Cheyenne died, he cracked under the stress of the baby's constant crying, his attorneys contend.

    Stepp recalled this week, in halting speech, how he rubbed Cheyenne's face into the carpet repeatedly to get her to stop crying. He recalled roughing her up as he changed her diaper that night, but he could not remember how he got blood on his underwear or precisely what he told emergency workers and other adults that night.

    Stepp was arrested after calling emergency dispatchers to report that Cheyenne had stopped breathing. He told dispatchers the infant had choked on toilet paper, then told emergency responders she had fallen off the couch and suffered rug burns.

    Prosecutors and defense attorneys say Stepp was not forthright in those initial accounts.

    Prosecutors contend that Cheyenne died during a sexual assault and severe beating that left her tongue nearly lacerated and her head so swollen that prosecutor Adam Moyers described her face as resembling a "grotesque scarlet mask."

    A medical examiner testified that Cheyenne likely died from head trauma caused from multiple blows.

    Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/09/...#ixzz1WvnkSgan

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    Defense delivers closing arguments in Stepp trial

    A defense attorney for Josh Stepp, the Iraq war veteran accused of sexually assaulting and murdering his stepdaughter, urged a jury this morning to find him guilty of second-degree murder.

    Stepp, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, has acknowledged responsibility in the death of Cheyenne Yarley, just 10 months old when she died.

    But Terry Alford, one of his attorneys, said in closing arguments, that Stepp did not sexually assault Cheyenne. Alford said Stepp was under the influence of painkillers, alcohol and post-traumatic stress when he rubbed the girls head into the carpet repeatedly on Nov. 8, 2009.

    When jurors get their instructions and a jury verdict sheet later today, Alford said, there will be a possibility to find the defendant not guilty.

    "We're not asking you to go there," Alford said. "He's guilty of second-degree murder. He can't explain everything he did. He can't explain why."

    Stepp, 28, an Army veteran who saw friends and troop mates fall victim to roadside bombs and suicide bombers, took the stand in his defense.

    He recalled in vivid detail some of what happened inside his Raleigh apartment on that Sunday evening in November 2009 when his stepdaughter died.

    Parts of the night, the less intense parts, he said, were difficult to remember.

    Stepp was arrested after calling emergency dispatchers to report that Cheyenne had stopped breathing. He told dispatchers the infant had choked on toilet paper, then told emergency responders she had fallen off the couch and suffered rug burns.

    Both prosecutors and defense attorneys say Stepp was not forthright in those initial accounts.

    Prosecutors contend Cheyenne died during a sexual assault and severe beating that left her tongue nearly severed.

    A medical examiner testified that Cheyenne likely died from head trauma caused from multiple blows.

    Stepp faces the possibility of the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.

    Alford, who was first up for the defense in closing arguments, said Stepp did not plot murder.

    "He wasn't able to premeditate," Alford said.

    Stepp, his attorneys say, did not seek help after coming back from Iraq. He returned home to a crumbling marriage. He had buried deep inside him his emotions after seeing troop mates and friends blown to bits by bombs. He kept to himself his feelings about picking up body pieces from one of those victims and putting it in a pizza box.

    The night Cheyenne died, the defense team said, Stepp lost it.

    Stepp recalled last week, in halting speech, how he rubbed Cheyenne's face into the carpet repeatedly to get her to stop crying. He recalled roughing her up as he changed her diaper that night, but he could not remember how he got blood on his underwear or precisely what he told emergency workers and other adults that night.

    Stepp rose this morning while the jury was out of the room on a break. Judge Osmond Smith asked him if he had given his attorneys the authority to describe him as guilty of second-degree murder.

    Yes, he said.

    Prosecutors will have the last word with the jury before the judge instructs them and sends them to deliberate behind closed doors.

    Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/09/...#ixzz1XBsaygmp

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    Jury begins deliberations in Stepp murder trial

    A Wake County jury began deliberating the fate Wednesday of a Raleigh man accused of sexually assaulting and killing his 10-month-old stepdaughter.

    The six men and six women spent about an hour and a half in the morning deciding whether Joshua Andrew Stepp tried to rape and then intentionally beat to death Cheyenne Yarley in their apartment on the evening of Nov. 8, 2008.

    If convicted of first-degree murder, Stepp, 28, could face the death penalty.

    Shortly after noon Wednesday, jurors sent out a note to Superior Court Judge Osmond Smith asking to see photos of the child's injuries and of the crime scene, where the state says Stepp slammed Cheyenne's face into the carpet while her mother was at work, leaving her with a "grotesque scarlet mask."

    Taking the witness stand in his own defense last week, Stepp admitted to injuring the child when she would not stop crying, but he said he didn't know why he did it. He denied ever sexually assaulting her.

    Defense attorney Terry Alford argued in closing arguments Tuesday that the Iraq war veteran is guilty of second-degree murder because he was drunk and high on prescription painkillers – Stepp's self-treatment for his then-undiagnosed case of post-traumatic stress disorder from his 2005 tour of duty.

    The combination of drugs and alcohol, attorneys argued, left him mentally incapable of planning out Cheyenne's attack.

    Police ignored that possibility, Alford argued, saying that they had a theory early on in the case and set out to prove it, unintentionally ignoring other evidence.

    "You know what happened," Alford told jurors. "You can feel it in your mind what happened: Here is a 10-month-old child dead with those injuries to the bottom. Boom! Conclusion: We've got a vile, vicious mean guy that tried to rape his 10-month-old stepchild. Let's go out and prove it."

    "They didn't intentionally do anything wrong, but what they did is they came to a conclusion too early," he added. "They stopped investigating and started prosecuting."

    But Wake County Assistant District Attorney Boz Zellinger said an Stepp knew exactly what he was doing and that his cognitive abilities were not impaired that night.

    "He intended to kill her," Zellinger said. "We know that because, one, she's dead, and two, he has all the capacity in the world that night to formulate and cover up what he did."

    Zellinger said Stepp had to leave early from watching a football game at a sports bar to care for his stepdaughter and that he tried to rape her because he was angry.

    "Rape is a crime of anger, a crime of force, power, control, and when the defendant walked into that apartment, that's what happened," Zellinger said.

    There was no other reason why Cheyenne's blood was found on Stepp's underwear, he said.

    Defense attorneys reminded jurors that there was no DNA evidence suggesting a sexual assault and that doctors and the medical examiner couldn't say definitively whether injuries to the child's vaginal and anal areas were caused by a penis.

    They argued that Stepp injured her while changing Cheyenne's messy diapers by using a finger and wipes in an "overly aggressive way."

    "These injuries came about with Josh having to change diapers in a stage where he couldn't be gentle," Alford said. "He couldn't be gentle that night. The head to the floor was harder than he meant it to be. The cleaning was harder than he meant it to be."

    http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/10098147/

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    Stepdad found guilty in infant's beating death

    A Wake County jury on Thursday found Joshua Andrew Stepp guilty of first-degree murder and sex offense of a child in the beating death of his 10-month-old stepdaughter almost two years ago.

    Stepp, 28, took the witness stand last week in his own defense, admitting that he beat, shook and slammed Cheyenne Yarley's face into the carpet of their Raleigh home on Nov. 8, 2009, when she wouldn't stop crying.

    An autopsy found the child died from abusive head trauma.

    Defense attorneys working to keep Stepp from facing a possible death penalty argued Tuesday that the Iraq war veteran used painkillers and alcohol as a way to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and that the combination of the three, along with Cheyenne's nonstop crying, led to the crime.

    They said his actions amounted to second-degree murder because he was incapacitated at the time.

    Prosecutors, however, argued that Stepp knew what he was doing when he also sexually assaulted Cheyenne.

    Injuries to her anal and vaginal areas were consistent with sexual abuse, witnesses testified, but Stepp maintained that he never sexually assaulted his stepdaughter. Those injuries, he said, happened because he was rough with her as he changed her diaper several times that night.

    "I hurt her, and I have to live with that. That's my life sentence right there," he testified. "But there's no way I could do anything sexual to any of my kids, to any kids period."

    The jury took more than six hours on Wednesday and Thursday before reaching their verdict.

    Stepp's trial now enters a second phase where jurors must now decide whether he should be sentenced to death for the crimes.

    http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/10103750/

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