Tape Portrays Slain Girl’s Role in Beating

In a chilling prelude to a gruesome crime, a 5-year-old girl participated in a brutal, tape-recorded beating of another youngster only weeks before she was murdered in a ritual to rid her of the devil, a Los Angeles jury heard Monday.

The 45-minute recording, in which an 11-year-old’s anguished cries could be heard amid a hellish chorus of “Jesus Loves Me,” opened the third day of the trial of two women accused of killing Breeann Spickard in July 1996 at an apartment in Baldwin Hills.

The dead girl’s mother, Deborah Elizabeth Reynolds, 34, pleaded guilty last week to second-degree murder in the case and testified against Julia Ann Olivas, 36, and Esther Rebecca Griggs, 43. The trial before Superior Court Judge Charles Horan is expected to conclude this week. Defense attorneys, who contend that their clients had no role in the fatal beating, are scheduled to begin presenting their case today.

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Authorities allege that Reynolds paddled her daughter so savagely that the girl died of internal injuries, while Olivas and Griggs held the girl down during the beating, which spanned hours over the Fourth of July weekend. During the attack, Reynolds testified, Griggs shoved her foot in the young girl’s mouth to stop her from crying and, at another point, the 180-pound Olivas jumped on the prone girl’s back to “finish” her killing.

When Baldwin Hills police were finally called by Reynolds to the site of the beating, the girl had been dead at least 36 hours, according to coroner’s testimony Monday. Her lower body, other testimony showed, had been so ravaged by the beating that several layers of skin were stripped away from her buttocks.

Despite the grisly scene, Baldwin Hills police testified Monday, Griggs acted as if nothing was awry when they arrived at her apartment after being called by Reynolds, who fled after the beating to her parents’ home.

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“Everything’s fine here,” Officer Greg Coley recalled being told by Griggs when he arrived to investigate Reynolds’ report that her child had been beaten to death.

“I asked her again, ‘Do you need us for anything?’ ” Coley testified.

“She looked surprised and said, ‘Everything’s fine here, officer,’ ” he recalled. But after double-checking the address with a police dispatcher, Coley said, he and other officers returned to Griggs’ front door, were allowed in and within moments found the dead girl lying face-down on a bed.

Displaying the clothing worn by the girl when he arrived at the apartment, Sheriff’s homicide Det. John View told the jury he found no evidence of trauma on her pink T-shirt with pictures of cartoon characters but that the seat of her pink shorts were smeared with dried blood.

Later, View testified, he recovered not only the paddle used in the fatal beating but a recording of an earlier assault in which the dead girl used the same paddle to repeatedly beat Griggs’ 11-year-old daughter at the direction of Olivas.

The tape, partially transcribed by Reynolds and played in its entirety to a somber jury, begins with Olivas briefly pronouncing “before God” her divorce from her husband. Then, for about 45 minutes, it consists of a long beating of Griggs’ daughter by the 5-year-old, who is urged on by Olivas.

Asked repeatedly to explain the purpose of the beating, the young girl is told by Olivas that she is helping to rid the 11-year-old girl of the devil.

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“The devil just doesn’t like you,” Olivas tells the young girl.

“How come?” the girl asks.

“Because you’re doing a good deed and he doesn’t want to let [the 11-year-old girl] go, cuz he says she belongs to him,” Olivas says.

Over time, the beating becomes progressively louder. So do the cries of the 11-year-old, who pleads time and again for the paddling to end.

Then, for almost 10 minutes, the attack continues as Olivas and several children, including the 5-year-old, can be heard singing several religious songs, including “Jesus Loves Me.”

Closing the case for the prosecution, the dead girl’s mother returned to the witness stand Monday to tell the court that she and Griggs arrived at the scene of that beating shortly before it ended.

“I came in during the singing,” she said.