LOS ANGELES : Woman Found Guilty in Death of 18-Month-Old Girl
A woman whose former partner conceived a daughter through artificial insemination was convicted Thursday of involuntary manslaughter for beating and starving the 18-month-old girl to death.
After deliberating for several days, the Los Angeles Superior Court jury also returned guilty verdicts against Lisa Smith, 26, for corporal injury to a child and child abuse in the April, 1992, killing of Tivia Smith.
The panel deadlocked 7-5 for conviction on a torture count, and a mistrial was declared on that charge. Prosecutors will announce at Smith’s Feb. 24 sentencing whether they will retry her on the torture charge.
On Tuesday, a separate jury convicted the child’s mother, Tivia Strother, on one count each of first-degree murder, torture, child abuse and corporal injury to a child.
Strother, 24, and Smith repeatedly beat the child--who weighed 17 pounds when she died--with belts, shoes and blunt objects and tortured her with nails, prosecutors said.
The toddler was taken to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center on April 5, 1992, after she was beaten unconscious. She died two days later, after doctors declared her brain-dead and her life-support systems were disconnected.
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