Monday, November 30, 2009

Dad to be tried on 2nd degree murder charges for death of 2-year-old son (Columbia, Missouri)

Dad HORACE JOHNSON is finally going to trial on 2nd-degree murder charges for the torture death of his 2-year-old son.

http://www.connectmidmissouri.com/news/story.aspx?id=383825

Trial for father charged with child abuse starts Tuesday
Monday, November 30, 2009 at 6:19 p.m.

COLUMBIA, MO. -- Boone County Prosecutor Dan Knight is headed to Kansas City tonight for tomorrow's jury selection in the murder trial of 27-year-old Horace Johnson.

Knight has charged Johnson with second-degree murder in the 2008 death of his two-year-old son, Cortez.

Medical examiners said the boy had been burned, cut, and bound before he eventually died from a blow to the head.

A jury is selected in Clay County will be brought back to Columbia for the trial.

In September, a jury found the boy's mother guilty of second-degree murder.

The judge sentenced 27-year-old Keyonda Lumpkin to 24 years in prison.

During her trial, the prosecutor said the boy's body bore evidence of more than 200 injuries at the time of his death.