Custodial dad, girlfriend charged in 4-year-old daughter's death (Kearns, Utah)

Custodial dad CLINTON HART has been charged with 1st-degree felony murder in the vicious beating death of his 4-year-old daughter. The live-in girlfriend "caretaker" has also been charged with criminal homicide/aggravated murder.

Note that Daddy Dearest stripped the mother of custody during a "messy divorce" (translation: abusive husband using the divorce process to pulverize/punish the mother of their child). The mother hadn't been able to see her daughter for the past year, because the father blocked visitation. For all the times that fathers accuse mothers of this, this kind of behavior is much more typical in abusive custodial fathers. In fact, in nearly every case I have seen of a custodial father severely abusing/killing the children, the mother had had contact shut off.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700042094/Kearns-father-girlfriend-charged-in-4-year-olds-death.html?pg=1

Kearns father, girlfriend charged in 4-year-old's death
By Pat Reavy

Deseret News

Published: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 12:35 a.m. MDT

KEARNS — One doctor called it "one of the worst series of intra-abdominal injuries" that a team of physicians at Primary Children's Medical Center had ever seen, according to court documents.
On Monday, the day 4-year-old Vanessa Hart was laid to rest at Elysian Burial Gardens, the Salt Lake District Attorney's Office charged 21-year-old Marina Navarro and 21-year-old Clinton Hart, Vanessa's father, with murder in connection with the young girl's death.

Navarro was charged with criminal homicide/aggravated murder, a first-degree felony, and three counts of second-degree felony child abuse. Hart was charged with first-degree felony murder and two counts of intentionally inflicting serious injury on a child, both second-degree felonies.

"It just makes me sick to think how anybody could even hurt Vanessa, someone who's not able to defend herself," Vanessa's aunt and godmother Jennifer Lopez said. "I just don't see it happening."

Documents filed in 3rd District Court on Monday outlined disturbing and heart-rending descriptions of the injuries the little girl suffered. Doctors at Primary Children's found evidence of "multiple severe injuries, including massive trauma to (Vanessa's) head, massive swelling of (Vanessa's) brain" and neurological damage possibly caused by several impacts to the head, according to court documents.

In addition, doctors discovered Vanessa had swelling in her bowel wall, tearing near her colon, a rupture near her stomach and a partially crushed pancreas. The injuries likely were caused by "multiple forceful blows or crushing forces" to Vanessa's abdomen, according to court documents.
The combination of the fresh head injury and multiple blows to Vanessa's abdomen, with the resulting shock and blood loss related to both, "were the proximate cause of death" to the young girl, according to court records.

On June 13, Clinton Hart went to work, leaving his two children, ages 4 and 2, in the care of his live-in girlfriend, Navarro.

At about 11:20 a.m., Hart received a text message from Navarro that Vanessa had fallen down the stairs, was lethargic and was having a hard time breathing, court documents stated. When Hart arrived home, he found Vanessa unconscious, court records state.

Doctors at Primary Children's, however, said Vanessa's head injuries could not have been caused by falling down a flight of carpeted stairs, according to charging documents.

Additional, older injuries were discovered during the autopsy, including bruising on her chest. One explanation given for the bruises by Hart was that Vanessa "ran into my fingers," according to court documents.

More bruising was found around Vanessa's mouth and eyes. Hart gave doctors several explanations for Vanessa's bruises, including falling against a table, falling off a bicycle, falling in the tub, climbing a brick wall and being hit in the eye by a toy thrown by her 2-year-old brother, according to court documents.

When all of the injuries were considered as a whole, a doctor at Primary Children's said it was evidence of "an ongoing pattern of inflicted trauma or child abuse," which culminated with Vanessa's head and abdominal injuries that caused her death, according to court records.

Hart told police that Navarro was using make-up to hide the bruising on Vanessa's face so people wouldn't ask questions when they went out in public, according to court documents.

The Harts lived in a basement apartment at 5093 W. Silvertip Drive (5440 South). One of the occupants of the other part of the house reported that, on June 11, she could hear screaming from the Harts' bedroom and then saw the door "banging and bowing out as if something or someone was being thrown up against it," charging documents state. The occupant also could hear Vanessa crying "extremely loud." Witnesses described Navarro's "mean behavior" as getting worse over the past few months.

A candlelight vigil was held for Vanessa during the weekend.

Family members say Vanessa's mother had not seen her daughter for more than a year because of a messy divorce between her and Hart. Family members claim Hart purposely tried to prevent his ex-wife from seeing Vanessa.

"I still don't know what to say about Clint, but definitely all of my anger and animosity is toward Marina," said. "We want justice."

Lopez said the family is focusing on Vanessa and described the funeral as "beautiful."

"Everyone said how it was tragic and how they're going to miss her," Lopez said. "The family was pretty heartbroken at the funeral."

The case has drawn comparison to that of Nathan and Stephanie Sloop, both charged with capital murder in the death of Stephanie Sloop's 4-year-old son, Ethan Stacy.

Prosecutors say Ethan was killed following a continuous pattern of severe abuse that started almost as soon as he arrived in Utah. Ethan's father, Joe Stacy of Virginia, was ordered by a court to send Ethan to Utah for the summer to be with his mother. Family members say Stephanie Sloop only wanted Ethan to get back at Joe Stacy.