The Child Protection eNewsletter

"Precious Doe" murder trial begins...

The crime was a shock even to a community that had seen its share of slayings: a little girl's headless body found in the woods. Fox News story here

Seven years later, testimony has begun against the man accused of killing a 3-year-old who became known to locals as "Precious Doe." Jackson County prosecutors say Harrell Johnson, 29, was high on drugs when he knocked his girlfriend's daughter, Erica Green, to the floor after she refused to go to bed. Johnson, along with the girls' mother, did not seek medical help as the girl lay dying for nearly 10 hours.

Prosecutors claim the couple eventually took the girl's body out of the house and that Johnson decapitated her and dumped the body in the woods. Johnson is charged with first-degree murder.

Even the defense conceded Monday that Harrell Johnson played an ugly role in the death of Erica Green, the little girl known in Kansas City for so long as Precious Doe. Kansas City Star story here

But establishing the exact crime that killed her is the point of Johnson's trial, which opened before a jury in Jackson County Circuit Court.

Prosecutors, laying out a case for premeditated murder, said Johnson's decision not to seek medical attention after he kicked the girl in the head is evidence of cool deliberation. "If he deliberates, no matter how brief, he has committed the offense of murder in the first degree," prosecutor Tim Dollar said in his opening statement.

Prosecutors said evidence would show that Johnson and Erica's mother elected not to seek medical help for the injured girl because they were wanted on warrants and didn't want to go to jail.

Defense lawyer Kenton M. Hall urged jurors in his opening statement to keep their emotions in check and their minds open. Hall said Johnson never intended to kill Erica, who nevertheless died an "accidental, reckless death from a single, out-of-control, reckless blow."

"It was not murder," Hall concluded.

Authorities recovered Erica's headless body in April 2001 and spent four years trying to learn her identity and find her killers. They charged Johnson and Erica's mother, Michelle Johnson, in May 2005 after a tip from a family member in Oklahoma. See vol5_iss61.

Bolstering the prosecution's theory, a neurosurgeon testified that Erica could have survived her initial injuries had someone sought quick medical attention. "That was ample time for a medical intervention that could have kept this child alive," Gregory Hornig, a physician at Children's Mercy Hospital, said in a video deposition.

A prosecutor asked if the Johnsons' decision not to seek medical help caused Erica's death.

"Yes it did," Hornig said.

Lawyers have said that Erica died anywhere from 10 to 36 hours after she was injured.

In other news...

A new law in Rhode Island called the Lindsay Ann Burke Act requires all public middle and high schools to teach students about dating violence in their health classes. USA Today story here One other state, Texas, mandates unspecified awareness education on dating violence for students and parents, while several other states encourage it. But the Rhode Island measure goes further by requiring the topic be incorporated annually into the curriculum for students in seventh through 12th grade. Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch, who shepherded the proposal through the legislature last year, said domestic violence is a disturbingly common crime, yet education about it is scarce and haphazard. "You teach sex ed, you teach 'don't do drugs,' you teach 'don't drink,' you should also be teaching 'don't be a victim of domestic violence,'" said Lynch, whose office receives about 5,000 cases a year. School districts are expected to start implementing the law this school year. By December, officials hope to have established a policy for responding to incidents of dating violence. The law is gaining traction around the country, with members of the National Association of Attorneys General unanimously adopting a resolution encouraging the education in their states. Nebraska's top prosecutor said he intends to submit legislation modeled after Rhode Island's law, and apparel maker Liz Claiborne Inc. has helped promote it around the country.

A protein required for the earliest steps in embryonic development also plays a key role in solidifying fear memories in the brains of adult animals, scientists have revealed. An apparent "hub" for changes in the connections between brain cells, beta-catenin could be a potential target for drugs to enhance or interfere with memory formation. Science Daily story here The results have just been published online and appear in the October issue of Nature Neuroscience. The protein beta-catenin acts like a Velcro strap, fastening cells' internal skeletons to proteins on their external membranes that connect them with other cells. In species ranging from flies to frogs to mice, it also can transmit early signals that separate an embryo into front and back or top and bottom. During long-term memory formation, structural changes take place in the synapses–the connections between neurons in the brain, says Kerry Ressler, MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. Ressler is a researcher at Emory University's Yerkes National Primate Research Center, where the research was conducted, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

A 7-year-old Texas boy found dead hanging from a hook in a school bathroom in February may have been playing a game called "run and jump", according to a police report. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27006468/ Students at the Not Your Ordinary School charter campus told police after the death of Tevin Park-Flowers that boys sometimes ran along benches lining the walls of the bathroom. Students called the game "run and jump" because they liked to jump from bench to bench and try to touch the ceiling, according to the report. See vol6_iss9.

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington has ruled that children have a "due process right" to be protected from abusive foster care. (ESTERA TAMAS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. STATE OF WASHINGTON, et al., Defendants. CASE NO. C07-750RAJ, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76940) Text of decision may be found at CPP/pdf/tamas. For the story behind this lawsuit see KING 5 news story here from April, 2007 when the suit was filed.

The parents of a 14-year-old Madison, Wisconsin girl are accused of beating, choking and kicking their daughter in what a detective said is the worst case of child abuse that he's seen. WISCTV News story here The parents are facing more than two dozen felony charges. Minerva Lopez and Porfino Olivas-Lopez appeared together in Dane County Court. A criminal complaint charges Lopez with 16 counts of child abuse. Olivas-Lopez is charged with 11 counts of abuse. The alleged abuse involves all five of their children, the youngest of whom is just 2 weeks old. The complaint said that the girl's mother beat her daughter with a broomstick, a metal rod, a frying pan and other objects. Prosecutors said that Lopez admitted scalding the girl with hot water, choking her, cutting her wrist with a kitchen knife and biting her face.

In 2006, a fourteen-year decline in the teen birth rate was interrupted by a small increase. Child Trends story here A new paper written by Child Trends Senior Scholar Kristin Anderson Moore, Ph.D., and published by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, examines factors that may have contributed to this increase, such as teen sexual activity, contraceptive use, and abortion, as well as broader social and economic changes.

Ford Motor Company will roll out a new feature on many 2010 models that can limit teen drivers to 80 mph, using a computer chip in the key. CBS News story here Parents also have the option of programming the teen's key to limit the audio system's volume, and to sound continuous alerts if the driver doesn't wear a seat belt. "Our message to parents is, hey, we are providing you some conditions to give your new drivers that may allow you to feel a little more comfortable in giving them the car more often," said Jim Buczkowski, Ford's director of electronic and electrical systems engineering. The feature, called "MyKey," will be standard on an unspecified number of Ford models when the 2010 cars and trucks come out late next summer. The feature will spread to the entire Ford, Lincoln and Mercury lineup as models are updated, spokesman Wes Sherwood said.

*for access to member only sites like the New York Times, use the ID "JohnDoeID" and the password "whatever". On sites asking for an email address, feel free to use "info@childprotectionprogram.org"