Page 1 of 5 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 46

Thread: Army Spc. Naeem Williams Gets LWOP in 2005 HI Slaying of Talia Emoni Williams

  1. #1
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,515

    Army Spc. Naeem Williams Gets LWOP in 2005 HI Slaying of Talia Emoni Williams


    Talia Emoni Williams


    Delilah Williams


    Spc. Naeem Williams


    Death penalty case is coming


    Hawaii can expect to see its 1st federal death penalty case go to trial next fall, Hawaii District U.S. Attorney Flo Nakakuni told Big Island legal professionals on Wednesday.

    While Hawaii may not have its own death penalty law on the books, the federal government has since 1994, Nakakuni said.

    The federal case against Army Spc. Naeem Williams, a Schofield Barracks soldier accused in the beating death of his 5-year-old daughter in 2005, is expected to go to trial in September 2011, she said.

    As U.S. attorney, Nakakuni is responsible for an office that employs 27 attorneys who litigate both federal criminal and civil cases on behalf of the U.S. The Honolulu-based U.S. Attorney's Office primarily handles criminal cases, she said.

    Nearly half of the criminal cases are drug-related, she said, adding that about 85 % of those cases involve methamphetamine in one way or another.

    The other half of the criminal cases most often involve fraud, firearms, immigration, human trafficking and national security issues.

    In the civil realm, about 20 % of the attorneys are handling cases involving civil rights, the environment, and litigation filed against the U.S. within the district, she said.

    Nakakuni's update to members of the West Hawaii Bar Association was held at the Manago Hotel in Captain Cook. About a dozen members attended the luncheon.

    Nakakuni was confirmed as U.S. attorney for the District of Hawaii by a full U.S. Senate on Sept. 29, 2009. A graduate of the University of Hawaii's William S. Richardson School of Law, Nakakuni is Hawaii's 2st female U.S. attorney. Prior to her confirmation, Nakakuni worked since 1985 as an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Hawaii.

    Nakakuni replaced Edward H. Kubo Jr., who had served as Hawaii's U.S. attorney since 2001. The office handles cases not only in Hawaii, but also Saipan, Guam and American Samoa.

    (source: Hawaii Tribune)

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Somewhat related

    Deployments and child deaths


    The troubled family of Talia Williams, 5, came up on the radar of Army police and socila workers four times in the six months before her farther, Spc. Naeem Williams, allegedly beat her to death in 2005.

    The number of children in military families who have been killed through abuse and neglect has more than doubled since 2003, and has begun to exceed child abuse fatality rates in the civilian world, military records show.

    In many cases, local military Family Advocacy Program officials had previous reports about those children and their troubled homes, but outreach efforts failed to save them.

    Deaths of military dependent children related to abuse and neglect have risen steadily from 14 in 2003 to 29 in 2010, according to data from the Defense Department’s Family Advocacy Program office.

    The trend peaked in 2008, when 36 child deaths were linked to abuse or neglect, a level that exceeds rates found in the civilian world. Those data are based on a Military Times review of more than 400,000 electronic records and FAP reports released under the Freedom of Information Act.

    Pentagon officials cannot say for sure how many military children die from abuse each year. The office that maintains the FAP database was unable to say whether there has, in fact, been a rise in child fatalities or whether the higher numbers result from improvements in record keeping.

    Keeping those records has become a new priority for the Defense Department. Last year, officials instituted an improved tracking system for child fatalities.

    But it will be several years until those data will be reliable enough to identify trends, said Pentagon spokeswoman Air Force Maj. Monica Matoush.

    Outside experts say an upward trend would come as no surprise, highlighting a rarely discussed symptom of stress on the force that is linked to the frequent war deployments of the past decade.

    “Most research suggests that child abuse and neglect was lower in the military” than in the private sector, said researcher Deborah Gibbs, who has studied child abuse in the military under a Defense Department contract.

    “That shifted once large-scale deployments started,” she said. “These are large and meaningful differences that are very clearly tied to specific events of the large-scale deployments.”

    Gibbs and others say little research has been done on military child fatalities caused by abuse or neglect.

    One study in North Carolina found that the rate of military child fatalities is about double the civilian average.

    There is evidence that the FAP office may be underreporting child fatalities. Officials are quick to caution that the FAP offices do not necessarily hear about every fatality. And data from individual services show a significantly higher number of deaths.
    Known to the system

    In many cases of child deaths, military officials knew the children were in troubled homes.

    According to the Defense Department, about one in five deaths in the past decade involved a child or family that was previously reported to the military’s family advocacy system for either child or domestic abuse.

    The service-specific data show an even higher rate. The Army says six of the 14 children of soldiers who died from abuse or neglect in 2007 were the subjects of previous reports. And five other deaths should have been in the FAP files because those families were involved with other military or civilian assistance offices, Army documents show.

    An Air Force review of 15 deaths found its FAP office had open files on about one-third of abusers. One underlying problem: “insufficient coordination between military health care providers, law enforcement agencies, civilian psychiatric facilities and the chain of command,” Air Force documents state.

    The Navy Department in 2009 reviewed the deaths of 12 children and concluded that five were homicides. Of those, two had histories of domestic abuse on file with the FAP, Navy records show.

    That contrasts with data from the civilian world, where 10 percent to 15 percent of child deaths occur in families that were on the radar of local social service agencies and had received “family preservation” help within the five years prior to the deaths, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
    Four warnings, no help

    The first time 5-year-old Talia Williams’ troubled family drew attention from Army social workers came in January 2005, when military police arrested her stepmother for beating up her father, a soldier posted to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

    The second warning sign came a month later, when a military day care worker noticed scars on the young girl’s arms. They sent Talia to a doctor. According to court documents, the doctor “could not say with 100 percent certainty that it was not abuse, but he could say with 98-99 percent certainty that it was not abuse,” and sent the girl home. The third time, a family friend lodged a hotline complaint with local civilian child protective services, directly accusing Talia’s father and stepmother of abuse. Caseworkers did not follow up or relay the complaint to the Army.

    According to court documents, “The log completed by the CPS Intake worker … remarked that ‘step mother suspected of mistreating five-year-old, willre-contact with correct name and address’” — the last apparent record of anyone doing anything in response to that phone call.

    The fourth time, also in June, military police got a call from a neighbor about a screaming child in the Williams home. When MPs entered the home, they found Talia “upstairs in a room, naked and mute, standing near feces on the floor” with scratches on her face, court records state. When police questioned her father, Spc. Naeem Williams, he said she got scratched playing with a friend.

    On July 16, doctors say Talia died from blunt head trauma, allegedly beaten to death by her father. He was charged with murder and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

    Now the Army faces a highly unusual lawsuit from Talia’s mother, who was living in South Carolina all that time. Tarshia Williams claims the Army was negligent in her daughter’s death amid clear warning signs, and that Army officials had a responsibility and duty to keep the child safe.

    The Army’s defense is that its FAP office and other military officials have no real legal responsibility to keep Talia — or any child — safe from abuse.

    A federal judge has rejected that argument. The case will go to trial in January.
    Data discrepancies

    Every year, the services convene fatality review panels that investigate deaths linked to child and domestic abuse. Since their creation in 2004, those review boards have consistently reported higher numbers of child deaths than the FAP office.

    Dr. Barbara Craig, director of the Armed Forces Center for Child Protection in Bethesda, Md., cited those review boards when asked about an apparent rise in deaths.

    “I sit on the Navy and Marine Corps spouse and child death review teams and one of my former staff members is on the Air Force team,” Craig said in response to an inquiry from Military Times. “It has not been our experience that we are seeing more child abuse and neglect deaths over the past few years.

    “To the contrary, since the Armed Forces Center for Child Protection, in collaboration with the [Navy Bureau of Medicine] perinatal advisory board instituted a nonaccidental head trauma prevention program for new parents … the number of abusive head trauma cases has declined over the past decade,” she added.

    Head trauma, a symptom of so-called shaken baby syndrome, is a common cause of death for young children.

    Experts say the military is a tightly knit community that may be better at identifying troubled homes where children are in danger. But these tightly knit military bases and communities can be isolated from local civilian child protective agencies.

    The military must report allegations of abuse or neglect to local civilian authorities, but “the military tends to want to care for its own rather than utilize the civilian network for assistance,” said Barbara Cohoon, a deputy director for government relations for the National Military Family Association.

    That tendency is rooted in the belief that outsiders do not understand military culture and will offer less effective assistance, Cohoon said.

    For years, rates of military child deaths linked to abuse and neglect were far lower than in the civilian population. But that may not be true anymore. FAP records show the 36 deaths in 2008 outpaced national civilian averages for the first time.

    For a community the size of the active-duty military — which has about 1.4 million children, according to Tricare — that rate of child abuse deaths is about 2.5 per 100,000. National civilian averages are about 2.2, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Records provided by the individual services suggest the number of deaths is significantly higher. For example, the FAP office recorded 24 child deaths in 2006. Yet service records show at least 38 children died from abuse or neglect in 2006, according to data found in documents produced by the individual services and obtained by Military Times.

    That amounts to a death rate of about 2.7 per 100,000 children.
    A records mess

    Officials both inside and outside the military have criticized the Pentagon’s efforts to track child deaths.

    The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly rapped the Defense Department for failing to properly maintain domestic abuse records, which Congress mandated in 2000. A decade later, the Pentagon still provides “incomplete data” and “cannot analyze trends,” the GAO said in a report last year.

    The services also complain that Pentagon policy complicates data collection and investigations. For example, a major challenge to getting accurate data is a policy that prohibits local FAP offices from investigating a fatality until after “all criminal proceedings have been completed.”

    That can take years, which “severely delays the fatality review process … and possibly contributes to under reporting of deaths,” stated a 2009 internal Army report on child and domestic abuse deaths.

    The Air Force notes that FAP offices that investigate child abuse have no authority to obtain personnel records on the service members involved. Such records would help investigators determine the cause of death in individual cases and help identify long-term trends.

    State and local law enforcement officials who receive reports of abuse or neglect in families living off base are not required to notify local commanders. The Navy report said this information would be a “significant benefit” and has encouraged the Defense Department to push Congress to enact a law making that a legal requirement.

    For many reasons, the Pentagon cannot vouch for its own data. Defense officials recognized the problem in 2008, while reviewing data from previous years. They found “a potential inconsistency in the way deaths had been recorded in the Family Advocacy Program Central Registry,” Matoush said.
    Overshadowed by war

    Domestic abuse was a major concern for the Pentagon about 10 years ago after Congress created a task force to study what many felt was a problem that deserved more light and heat. But the task force was overshadowed from the start when it delivered its final report to Congress on April 20, 2003 — the day the U.S. invaded Iraq.

    That day was “totally bizarre,” said Deborah Tucker, a task force’s co-chairwoman who went to Washington to deliver and testify about the findings.

    Lawmakers left the hearing room during breaks to check cable news reports about dust storms slowing down U.S. troops advancing toward Baghdad.

    “We knew that day that what we wanted — for the department to focus on domestic violence and really help us create a segment of society that had eliminated it — was not going to happen,” Tucker said.

    The office of the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness followed up on some recommendations, assigning key responsibilities to FAP offices.

    But the Pentagon closed its Family Violence Policy Office in 2007 and rejected a request from the task force to reconvene and evaluate the Pentagon’s progress.

    http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/0...eaths-090211w/

  3. #3
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    Naeem Williams Trial Could Bring First Death Penalty To Hawaii

    Jury selection is underway for the first death penalty trial in the state of Hawaii.

    Capital punishment was abolished in Hawaii in 1957, but the U.S. attorney's office is seeking the federal death penalty in the trial of Naeem Williams who is accused of beating his five-year-old daughter to death in 2005.

    Williams, an Army specialist who was stationed in Hawaii at the time, had obtained custody of his daughter, Talia, only seven months before her death. The two lived in base housing on Wheeler Army Airfield along with Williams's wife, Delilha Williams, and prosecutors claim the young girl endured months of abuse at the hands of both caregivers.

    In July of 2005, Talia died from blunt-force trauma to her head, and an autopsy report showed she suffered from "battered child syndrome."

    Court documents reveal that Talia’s room had no mattress, no blankets and no furniture, and that “blood spatters could be seen throughout the Williams residence.” Talia’s room had “blood splatters on the walls … caused by Naeem Williams ‘whipping’ Talia with his belt on Talia’s back ‘bursting open’ the scars.”

    Williams also allegedly duct-taped Talia to a bed post on more than one occasion, covering her eyes and mouth with duct tape — “so she couldn’t scream” or see — and then whipped the young girl with a belt “for more an hour at a time.”

    Delilha Williams told FBI agents that she had been "stomping on Talia," before the girl died, telling her that she hated Talia, that she was stupid and that she had ruined Delilha's life.

    Delilha pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and is currently serving a sentence of 20 years. She is expected to testify against Spc. Williams.

    Talia's biological mother, Tarshia Williams, won the right to sue the U.S. Army in 2010 for failing to protect her daughter after obvious signs of abuse. The Army usually handles instances of child abuse through the military police and the Army Family Advocacy Program, but, according to court documents, even an Army major general noted that, in Talia's case, there was "a series of missed opportunities to potentially prevent the death of the child."

    Military police and social workers were alerted about possible abuse at the Williams home four times in the six months leading up to Talia's death.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_4691804.html

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Federal Death Penalty Trial Set to Open in Hawaii

    A Honolulu courtroom is set to become the scene of a death penalty trial even though Hawaii abolished capital punishment in 1957.

    Opening statements are scheduled for Tuesday in the trial of a former Hawaii-based Army soldier accused of beating his 5-year-old daughter to death in 2005. But because the crime allegedly took place on military property, Naeem Williams is being tried in federal court — a system that does have the death penalty.

    It's rare for the government to seek the death penalty in a state that doesn't allow it. Only seven of 59 inmates currently on federal death row are from states that didn't have the death penalty at the time the sentence was imposed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

    While the Williams case hasn't received much publicity, the death penalty circumstance gives it something in common with a more high profile case for federal prosecutors: the Boston Marathon bombing.

    "You have a population in Massachusetts and in the city where they're not used to having the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, the Death Penalty Information Center's executive director. "It just makes it a little harder to get these kinds of death sentences."

    But Kenneth Lawson, associate director of the Hawaii Innocence Project, noted that someone who considers the death penalty immoral can be disqualified from serving on the jury.

    "How do you get a jury of all of your peers when the only ones who can sit on there are those who believe in capital punishment?" he said.

    Attorneys in the Williams case began questioning prospective jurors in January.

    Talia Emoni Williams died in July 2005 after she was brought to a hospital unresponsive, vomiting and covered in bruises. A criminal complaint by federal investigators accuses her then-25-year-old father of beating the child to discipline her for urinating on herself. Federal investigators wrote that military law enforcement agents found blood splatters in the walls of the family's home at Wheeler Army Airfield from Talia being whipped with Williams' belt.

    Delilah Williams, Talia's stepmother, was also charged with murder but pleaded guilty in a deal with prosecutors. She's expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison after she testifies against Williams at his trial, said her federal public defender, Alexander Silvert.

    The Army agreed the case should be prosecuted in the civilian justice system so that the father and stepmother could appear in the same court.

    "I am shocked that this case has not received more attention from the public and more attention from those groups in Hawaii that are anti-death penalty," Silvert said. "No one's in protest. To me, the lack of interest in the community is troubling."

    Talia's biological mother, Tarshia Williams, is expected to testify for the prosecution, her attorneys said. She filed a civil lawsuit against the government over Talia's death. It has been put on hold until after the criminal trial. The mother's lawsuit claims the military didn't report to the proper authorities that Talia's father and stepmother "abused and tortured" her throughout the seven months she lived in Hawaii before she died.

    Alberto Gonzales, the U.S. attorney general during President George W. Bush's administration, made the decision to seek the death penalty against Naeem Williams.

    "Under Bush's administration, the philosophy was the federal death penalty should be spread out among all the states," Dieter said.

    Legal observers say it's surprising that the current government continues to seek the death penalty against Williams. "It's disappointing the federal government is choosing to move forward with a death penalty case in a state that so clearly and constantly has rejected that as a form of punishment," said Rick Sing, president of the Hawaii Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

    The last time the federal death penalty was approved for a Hawaii case was against Richard "China" Chong. But before he went to trial in 2000, he agreed to plead guilty to a 1997 drug-related murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He died of an apparent suicide about three months later.

    Hawaii's history with capital punishment goes back long before statehood. There were 49 executions dating in Hawaii dating to 1856, with the last one recorded in 1944, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

    The final execution of Ardiano Domingo — a Filipino who was hanged for killing a woman with scissors in a Kauai pineapple field — helped prompt Hawaii's territorial lawmakers to abolish the death penalty in the state, said Williamson Chang, a University of Hawaii law school professor who teaches a course on the history of law in Hawaii.

    Chang said before the law changed, Hawaii disproportionally executed people of color, mostly Filipinos, Japanese and Native Hawaiians.

    Because of that history, Chang said he believes Hawaii jurors will struggle with the Williams case.

    "We're used to a society which does not put people to death," he said. "It's a slap in the face to the values of Hawaii."

    A Honolulu courtroom is set to become the scene of a death penalty trial even though Hawaii abolished capital punishment in 1957.

    Opening statements are scheduled for Tuesday in the trial of a former Hawaii-based Army soldier accused of beating his 5-year-old daughter to death in 2005. But because the crime allegedly took place on military property, Naeem Williams is being tried in federal court — a system that does have the death penalty.

    It's rare for the government to seek the death penalty in a state that doesn't allow it. Only seven of 59 inmates currently on federal death row are from states that didn't have the death penalty at the time the sentence was imposed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

    While the Williams case hasn't received much publicity, the death penalty circumstance gives it something in common with a more high profile case for federal prosecutors: the Boston Marathon bombing.

    "You have a population in Massachusetts and in the city where they're not used to having the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, the Death Penalty Information Center's executive director. "It just makes it a little harder to get these kinds of death sentences."

    But Kenneth Lawson, associate director of the Hawaii Innocence Project, noted that someone who considers the death penalty immoral can be disqualified from serving on the jury.

    "How do you get a jury of all of your peers when the only ones who can sit on there are those who believe in capital punishment?" he said.

    Attorneys in the Williams case began questioning prospective jurors in January.

    Talia Emoni Williams died in July 2005 after she was brought to a hospital unresponsive, vomiting and covered in bruises. A criminal complaint by federal investigators accuses her then-25-year-old father of beating the child to discipline her for urinating on herself. Federal investigators wrote that military law enforcement agents found blood splatters in the walls of the family's home at Wheeler Army Airfield from Talia being whipped with Williams' belt.

    Delilah Williams, Talia's stepmother, was also charged with murder but pleaded guilty in a deal with prosecutors. She's expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison after she testifies against Williams at his trial, said her federal public defender, Alexander Silvert.

    The Army agreed the case should be prosecuted in the civilian justice system so that the father and stepmother could appear in the same court.

    "I am shocked that this case has not received more attention from the public and more attention from those groups in Hawaii that are anti-death penalty," Silvert said. "No one's in protest. To me, the lack of interest in the community is troubling."

    Talia's biological mother, Tarshia Williams, is expected to testify for the prosecution, her attorneys said. She filed a civil lawsuit against the government over Talia's death. It has been put on hold until after the criminal trial. The mother's lawsuit claims the military didn't report to the proper authorities that Talia's father and stepmother "abused and tortured" her throughout the seven months she lived in Hawaii before she died.

    Alberto Gonzales, the U.S. attorney general during President George W. Bush's administration, made the decision to seek the death penalty against Naeem Williams.

    "Under Bush's administration, the philosophy was the federal death penalty should be spread out among all the states," Dieter said.

    Legal observers say it's surprising that the current government continues to seek the death penalty against Williams. "It's disappointing the federal government is choosing to move forward with a death penalty case in a state that so clearly and constantly has rejected that as a form of punishment," said Rick Sing, president of the Hawaii Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

    The last time the federal death penalty was approved for a Hawaii case was against Richard "China" Chong. But before he went to trial in 2000, he agreed to plead guilty to a 1997 drug-related murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He died of an apparent suicide about three months later.

    Hawaii's history with capital punishment goes back long before statehood. There were 49 executions dating in Hawaii dating to 1856, with the last one recorded in 1944, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

    The final execution of Ardiano Domingo — a Filipino who was hanged for killing a woman with scissors in a Kauai pineapple field — helped prompt Hawaii's territorial lawmakers to abolish the death penalty in the state, said Williamson Chang, a University of Hawaii law school professor who teaches a course on the history of law in Hawaii.

    Chang said before the law changed, Hawaii disproportionally executed people of color, mostly Filipinos, Japanese and Native Hawaiians.

    Because of that history, Chang said he believes Hawaii jurors will struggle with the Williams case.

    "We're used to a society which does not put people to death," he said. "It's a slap in the face to the values of Hawaii."

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/f...inglePage=true
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  5. #5
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Jurors to hear details of child's beating death

    A death penalty trial is scheduled to begin in the case of a former Hawaii-based soldier accused of beating his 5-year-old daughter to death in 2005.

    After months of jury selection, opening statements are expected Tuesday in the murder trial against Naeem Williams.

    Even though Hawaii abolished capital punishment in 1957, the federal court system allows for the federal death penalty.

    Talia Williams died in July 2005 after she was brought to a hospital unresponsive, vomiting and covered in bruises. A criminal complaint by federal investigators accuses her then-25-year-old father of beating the child to discipline her for urinating on herself.

    Investigators noted the girl slept in a room that had no mattress, no furniture and no blankets.

    http://thegardenisland.com/news/stat...be285c980.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  6. #6
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    Mother testifies about victim in capital murder case

    By Nelson Daranciang

    Tarshia Williams told a federal court jury that the last time she saw her daughter Talia was when her little girl left South Carolina to live with her father in Hawaii in December 2004.

    And despite a court order from a South Carolina family court judge granting her two telephone conversations with her daughter each week, Williams said she talked to her daughter only three times after the girl left and before Talia died on July 16, 2005.

    Talia's father, Naeem J. Williams, is on trial for capital murder for the child abuse beating death of his 5-year-old daughter.

    He is the first person to stand trial for a death penalty offense in Hawaii since the territorial Legislature abolished capital punishment in 1957.

    Williams, 34, a former Schofield Barracks soldier, is facing the death penalty under federal law for killing a child through child abuse or as part of a pattern and practice of abuse and torture.

    http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/b...rder_case.html

  7. #7
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Neighbor in death penalty trial testifies she heard screams

    Seventeen days before 5-year-old Talia Williams died in 2005, military police officers and an investigator went to her military family quarters on Wheeler Army Airfield to respond to a report of a domestic argument.

    A neighbor testified in federal court Thursday morning that she made the report because of constant yelling and screaming coming from the home.

    Talia's father, former Schofield Barracks soldier Naeem Williams, is on trial in U.S. District court for capital murder for the child abuse beating death of his daughter, who died on July 16, 2005.

    Two military police officers testified that when they saw Talia on June 29, 2005, she had scratches on her face. The military police investigator said he saw the scratches and a healed cut above Talia's left eye. They left the home after Naeem Williams told them that another child scratched Talia and that the cut was from a fall. Williams also told them the yelling was him and his wife arguing but that the argument was over.

    A sergeant from Williams's military command testified he also went to the home later that night and saw that in addition to the scratches, Talia had a black eye. He said Williams told him another child had punched his daughter at a birthday party.

    After Talia died, Williams's wife, Delilah, told the FBI that on that same day, she yelled at and beat her stepdaughter -- striking the face and body with a belt. Delilah Williams also said when Talia fell to the ground, she stomped on the girl, including on Talia's stomach.

    http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/b...d_screams.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  8. #8
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    Stepmother: Ex-Hawaii soldier's daughter abused regularly, escalating to deadly beating

    By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER, Associated Press

    HONOLULU — The stepmother of a 5-year-old girl who prosecutors allege was beaten to death by her father testified Friday that she and the former Hawaii soldier abused the girl regularly and that they pulled her out of school so that others wouldn't see the signs the abuse left on the child's body.

    Delilah Williams testified for the prosecution in the capital murder trial against Naeem Williams that they decided to pull the girl, Talia, out of elementary school because they worried that school officials would notice the abuse and have them arrested.

    "She started having marks on her body," Delilah Williams said, noting that she and Naeem Williams dressed the girl in clothes that covered the marks while the special-needs child was still enrolled in school then left her at home by herself after they pulled her from classes.

    The testimony will satisfy terms of a plea deal the stepmother made with prosecutors in which she acknowledged her role in killing the child as part of a pattern and practice of assault and torture. The agreement calls for a 20-year sentence.

    Delilah Williams — who worked as an administrator registering children for daycare at Schofield Barracks — said she and the father repeatedly cursed at Talia, called her names and hit her almost daily. She said the child slept on the floor of an empty bedroom and was denied food for two or three days at a time.

    Williams said she was mandated to report suspected abuse as part of her job.

    Naeem Williams could face the death penalty if convicted of murder in the July 16, 2005, death. The federal trial allows prosecutors to pursue the death penalty in a state that doesn't have capital punishment.

    Delilah Williams said Naeem Williams bound the girl to a bedpost with duct tape before beating her with a belt. In one of those taping incidents, she said, she recalled the child having a "pleading look."

    The stepmother said she attempted the taping routine once herself, but she found it wasn't effective because the girl was still able to squirm around.

    "It required too much effort, also, so I decided not to do it again," she said.

    Much of her testimony was delivered with an even, calm voice. But she sounded like she was going to cry when she described a beating she inflicted on June 29, 2005.

    Williams said she came home from work that day and saw that Talia had wet herself.

    "I started stomping on her," she said. "I just continued stomping on her until it felt like a bone cracked under my foot and she defecated on herself."

    She forced the child to sit on a toilet and pushed on her stomach so hard that a toilet pipe broke, causing a leak. She said she then grabbed Talia by the hair and slammed her head against a wall.

    "I left to get my nails done," she said.

    It wasn't the first time she grabbed the child by the hair, she said, describing a time when she pulled Talia by the hair at the top of her head because she was slow going up the stairs. "A big chunk of her hair" came out, she said.

    "Everything that I did to her was all wrong," she said, but that the stomping was the most "severe" incident.

    She also described another incident when her husband punched the child in the stomach for eating a doughnut. The girl wasn't allowed to go downstairs to eat while she was home alone, Delilah Williams said.


    The stepmother said the day Talia died, the girl walked backward out of her bedroom, during a belt-beating from her father, with her hands in front of her saying things like "no daddy," and "can we stop now?"

    Delilah Williams said the girl and her father were out of her view when she heard the thump of what sounded like a body hitting the floor. She said she later saw Talia on her back, with stiff arms. She told her husband to put water on her in the bathtub so that, "maybe she'll snap out of it."

    But Talia started wheezing and the stepmother told the father, "she's faking. Just leave her alone," Delilah Williams said.

    Her husband said to call 911, but she refused because she wanted to wait until her cousin could pick up their infant daughter, she said.

    They packed up the baby's things and devised a story about Talia falling in the shower, she said.

    Prosecutors say the couple waited two hours before calling 911. Talia was pronounced dead at a hospital.

    Naeem Williams is expected to take the stand during the trial, his defense attorney John Philipsborn told jurors in his opening statement.

    Philipsborn said his client was poorly equipped to take care of Talia and was married a controlling, angry woman who took control of his finances and other daily tasks.

    http://www.startribune.com/nation/25...tml?page=2&c=y
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  9. #9
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Defense to begin in murder trial over Orangeburg child's death

    The defense is expected to begin presenting its case in the capital murder trial of a former Hawaii-based soldier accused of beating his 5-year-old daughter to death.

    Even though there's no capital punishment in Hawaii, Naeem Williams faces the death penalty because he's being tried in federal court.

    The prosecution's final witness was the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy on Williams' daughter, Talia, after she died in July 2005. Dr. Kanthi De Alwis completed her testimony last week, saying Talia had a multitude of fresh and healing injuries including a dislocated shoulder and fractured ribs.

    The defense is expected to begin calling witnesses Tuesday. His attorneys say Williams is expected to testify.

    Prosecutors say Williams dealt a fatal blow so hard it left knuckle impressions on the girl's chest.

    Talia was originally from Orangeburg and moved to Hawaii to live with her father.

    http://thetandd.com/news/defense-to-...a4bcf887a.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  10. #10
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    Ex-soldier takes witness stand in death penalty case

    By Nelson Daranciang

    Accused child killer Naeem J. Williams took the witness stand in his own defense Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court.

    Williams, 34, is on trial for capital murder for the July 16, 2005, child abuse beating death of his 5-year-old daughter Talia.

    He is facing the death penalty for killing a child through child abuse or as part of a practice and pattern of assault and torture.

    Williams said he knew that his daughter had bowel and bladder control problems when he won custody of Talia in early-December 2004. He said his wife Delilah followed a routine to minimize the chances of Talia accidentally soiling herself.

    He said Talia started soiling herself about a week after arriving in Hawaii from South Carolina.

    "It wasn't a big deal to me. I considered it an accident," he said.

    Williams said he talked to his daughter and told her to try to get to the bathroom next time.

    By the end of the month Williams said he began to physically punish his daughter for soiling herself. The court session ended for the day before Williams told the jury how he punished his daughter.

    The government claims that Talia died after Williams punched his daughter in the chest and the girl fell backward and hit her head on the floor of the family's military quarters at Wheeler Army Airfield. By then Talia had withstood months of physical abuse at the hands of her father and stepmother.

    http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/b...l?id=253432101

Page 1 of 5 123 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •