Dad admits killing 8-week-old daughter (Easton, Pennsylvania)

Dad JOSEPH A. URQUIA has pleaded guilty to beating to death his 8-week-old daughter. Seems that Daddy--who had a history of child abuse--punched her in the head because he was frustrated with her crying.

http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-easton-baby-murder-child-abuse-20110505,0,4343764.story

Easton man admits to killing baby daughter
By Riley Yates, OF THE MORNING CALL

11:59 a.m. EDT, May 5, 2011
The first photograph showed a beautiful baby girl, healthy and smiling.

The second, taken two weeks later, showed her dead in a morgue, her mouth open and bruising across much of the left side of her face.

On Thursday, the girl's father, Joseph A. Urquia, pleaded guilty to beating her to death on Dec. 19 at their Easton home, admitting he punched her "at least twice" in the head because she wouldn't stop crying.

Urquia, who has a history of child abuse, faces a maximum of 20 to 40 years in prison for the third-degree murder of 8-week-old Joselynn Urquia.

"He held her in his right hand and punched her twice with his left hand. At least twice," Northampton County First Deputy District Attorney Terence Houck recounted, before later handing a series of photographs of the girl to Judge Paula Roscioli.

According to court records filed by police, Urquia at first claimed he had dropped Joselynn in their N. Seventh Street apartment, but later admitted striking her in the head because he was "frustrated and angry" because he couldn't console her.

The baby became "lifeless and unresponsive" after the blows, Urquia told investigators. Joselynn died two days later after being taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest with serious head injuries.

The plea was made at Urquia's arraignment, the earliest possible time. The girl's mother, Brenda de la Cruz, sat in the jury box with drawn face, dabbing her eyes and leaning to hear a Spanish interpreter.

Under the plea agreement, Urquia waived any appeals, except over the sentence he receives. It came as prosecutors could have sought a first-degree murder conviction and the death penalty, and as Urquia's defense argued he was an unequipped parent who "just lost it."

"You did not intend to kill Joselynn?" defense lawyer Gary Asteak asked Urquia.

"Never," Urquia said.

Third-degree murder is a killing done with "malice," a legal term that means Urquia acted with a willful disregard for the risk of death his actions created.

"You are admitting that you in fact struck your infant child on numerous occasions, which caused her death?" Roscioli asked Urquia.

"Yes, your honor," said Urquia, who spoke in a clear voice, with puffy eyes but no outward display of emotion.

Urquia faces sentencing on June 9, and Roscioli ordered him to undergo psychological and drug and alcohol evaluations.

Afterward, Houck said the plea was appropriate given the facts of the case. Houck will be asking for Urquia to get the maximum sentence allowed.

"This was a situation where he assaulted this child in the course of a very few short minutes or seconds," Houck said. "It was not something that the defendant planned out, but in the same respect, he did it with great anger and with great force."

Houck added: "He did it without regard at all to the value of Joselynn's life."

Asteak called the murder a "tragedy of epic proportions."

"He's a 21-year-old who is holding down a full-time job, going to school, two infants on his hands and he just snapped," Asteak said. "A crying child on this Sunday morning just caused him to do the unthinkable."

Urquia, who is bipolar, was on probation at the time for abusing his and de la Cruz's older daughter.

In 2009, he admitted to spanking that girl, who was 3 months old at the time, so hard it caused a large bruise across her buttocks. He pleaded guilty to simple assault, a misdemeanor.

At Thursday's proceeding, Roscioli noted that Urquia lied to doctors who treated Joselynn, claiming she had fallen and not been struck. Roscioli asked Houck whether it would have made a difference if he had been truthful.

"No one on Earth" can answer that definitively, Houck said.

"I can only tell you that no good can come from a [medical] history that isn't true," he said.