Two-year-old boy killed by stepfather (Orange Walk, Belize)

Babysitting stepdad ELIJAH MILLER is charged with pummelling his two-year stepson to death. Mom, who had to work, had left two children in his care. The stepdad lied to the mother about the child's injuries, and misrepresented what the doctor said about the child. The child later died of lung complications caused by abdominal trauma.

http://www.guardian.bz/all-crime/364-baby-killed-by-stepfather

Baby killed by Stepfather

Thursday, 02 July 2009 12:47

On the morning of Wednesday July 1, Orange Walk Police escorted a handcuffed Elijah Miller, 25, for the short walk from the station to the Magistrate’s Court where he was charged for the murder of his two year old stepson. Miller is accused of doing the unthinkable, mercilessly pummeling to death his two year old stepson Ezekiel Tejeda. The incident unfolded in the quiet village of Tower Hill. There are 450 residents in that community and as the name suggests it is located near the Tower Hill Sugar Factory on the outskirts of Orange Walk Town. It was on the Old Northern Highway that Tejeda lived with his mother and her boyfriend Elijah Miller along with two older siblings.

Felicia, who is a juice vendor at BELCOGEN, says she left the children, including Ezekiel, a three year old and a five year old, in care of Elijah on Friday morning. She returned Friday evening and immediately felt something was wrong. All the children were asleep and Ezekiel wasn’t the same. She says the baby was fussy, complaining that his stomach hurt. She says Elijah told her it was probably something the baby had eaten and persuaded her that she should just buy an Alka Seltzer. But the young mother wasn’t convinced and took the baby to the emergency room at the Orange Walk Hospital where he was seen by a doctor who after checking his pulse and temperature prescribed medication and released the child in the custody of the parents. Felecia laments that she never spoke to the doctor, only Elijah Miller did, suggesting that the cause of the baby’s problem was mango, mosquitoes, and smoke.

From the hospital, the couple returned to Tower Hill. She says it was an uncomfortable ride home, noting that she saw bruises and, “I asked him at hospital that if he did anything to my baby he would pay for what he did and I asked him and he said nothing… he said all he did was bathe him after they finished eating the mango and he lashed them because they were giving trouble and he put them to sleep.”

On their arrival back in Tower Hill, Elijah went home with Ezekiel, and Felecia went to her mother’s house for money to buy the medication prescribed by the doctor. It was while looking for money that she found the truth. One of her other children detailed to her the horrific abuse that Ezekiel endured allegedly at the hands of her boyfriend. On the steps of the Belize City Morgue we met Felecia Tejeda on Monday afternoon; she told The Guardian that, “my two babies tell me that the boy hurt the baby the morning. They said the boy took the baby and fling him up and stoned him on the wall and stoned him with a pint bottle.”

After hearing that her son had been violently shook, flung in the air, and stoned with a pint bottle she rushed home and found out that Elijah had already taken the baby boy back to the emergency room. Personnel at the hospital’s emergency room told her that her son was in surgery and a short while later they told her that her two year old baby boy died during surgery. There were multiple injuries and a post mortem on Monday certified that Ezekiel had injuries to his abdomen, bowels, and intestines. He died from lung complications caused by abdominal trauma.