Dad confesses to murder of 2-month-old daughter (United Kingdom)

Dad is identified as AURIMAS MEDEDEVAS. No mention of a mother in the home. Was there one?

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/father-admits-murdering-twomonthold-baby-daughter-found-dead-in-cot-after-being-bitten-and-shaken-9745058.html

Father confesses murder of his two-month-old baby daughter who was found dead in cot Standard Reporter

Published: 19 September 2014 Updated: 18:16, 19 September 2014

A Lithuanian father has admitted murdering his two-month-old baby daughter.

Aurimas Medvedevas, 23, changed his plea to guilty two days in to his trial at the Old Bailey.

The jury had been told that two-month-old Aukse had a bite on her forehead and had suffered repeated blows and violent shaking. She was found with a deep cut to the liver, five rib fractures, and bleeding on the brain and eyes indicating that she had been shaken.

Agency worker Dzesika Urbikaite, 22, returned to their Peterborough home on September 5 last year to find her daughter dead in a cot.

Medvedevas had previously denied murder, claiming she had died accidentally by falling out of bed.

The jury returned a guilty verdict.

Judge Timothy Pontius told the jury that they had heard his "clear and voluntary confession of guilt".

He told them: "This is a distressing case and a tragic one. Your are relieved of the burden of listening to that evidence."

Sentencing is set to take place next week but a date has yet to be fixed.

Prosecutor Karim Khalil QC had previously told the court that the cause of death was a head injury although there were "signs of numerous other inflicted injuries too".

A post-mortem examination uncovered a catalogue of bruises and abrasions on Aukse's body as well as two bite marks on her head.

An examination of one of the bite marks showed it matched the defendant's teeth imprint, the court heard.

After he was arrested, the defendant admitted he had been in sole care of the baby but denied hurting her.

Before his trial, he produced an account claiming the baby must have fallen out of bed and hit her head on the side of the cot while he was beside her in a deep sleep.

Then on the day his trial was due to start in May, he produced a radically different account, accepting for the first time that he caused the injuries, the court heard.

He said he had shaken his baby and thrown her on the bed and then from there she fell to the floor, the court heard.

But the prosecutor said that Medvedevas had still failed to account for all the injuries Aukse suffered and there was no explanation for the bite marks on her forehead.