Deadly momster - Clarendon woman awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to beating 2-y-o daughter to death
Published:Sunday | April 8, 2018 | 12:00 AMLivern Barrett/Senior Gleaner Writer
A Clarendon mother who used a piece of board to beat her two-year-old daughter to death because the child defecated on herself will have to wait another five weeks to know her punishment.
Delreta Smith and her common-law husband, Dingwall Green, were arrested and charged with murder in connection with the gruesome killing of toddler Sherene Smith in Gordon Wood, Clarendon, in February 2006.
A post-mortem report, which is among the evidence in the case, revealed that the two-year-old had blood in both kidneys and laceration to the posterior wall of the small intestine.
"Cause of death: hypovolemic shock due to rupture to intestines and blunt trauma to kidneys," the report concluded.
In January, Delreta Smith opted to plead guilty to manslaughter after prosecutor Andrea Martin Swaby empanelled a jury to commence the trial in the Clarendon Circuit Court.
Prosecutors explained that Green was charged because there is evidence that Sherene defecated on herself hours before the fatal beating and that he twice "slapped" her on her legs.
Green has pleaded not guilty to murder.
Another piece of evidence prosecutors had against Smith was a statement given to police investigators by her other daughter.
In her witness statement she said Sherene fell asleep after she was "slapped" by Dingwall Green.
She said the two-year-old woke up a short time later and defecated on herself a second time. At this point, according to her other daughter's account, Smith came into the house and started beating her child with a piece of board.
She told investigators that her mother used the piece of board to hit her sister over the back and on her hands.
She said that after the beating, her sister went to sleep, but revealed that when Sherene woke up she was "walking and falling over".
In addition, she said the two-year-old was not eating.
She said her mother rushed Sherene to a doctor, but she was pronounced dead shortly after they arrived.