ELIJAH JOSEPH ULBRICH - 3 yo (1/2011) - / Convicted: Babysitter, Charles Kane Jr - North Wildwood, NJ

A Lower Township charged with murder in the beating death of a 3-year-old boy has pleaded not guilty.   Charles Kane Jr., who also faces child endangerment charges, could
face life in prison if convicted on all counts. The 35-year-old Lower
Township resident entered his pleas Friday during a brief court hearing.   Cape May County prosecutors contend Kane brutally beat Elijah Joseph
Ulbrich while he was babysitting him last February. The boy's mother had
left him with Kane while she ran some errands and, when she returned,
she found the child was unresponsive and had a knot on his head.
  The boy was rushed to the hospital but never regained consciousness
before he died about three weeks later. An autopsy determined he died
from "blunt head trauma.''

Attorney for Charles Kane Jr. looks to have murder indictment dismissed in death of 3-year-old





Dale Gerhard Charles Kane Jr., right, was in court Thursday, Feb. 17, with his attorney John Tumelty.

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Posted: Thursday, February 17, 2011 4:55 pm | Updated: 4:27 pm, Tue Apr 5, 2011.




Attorney for Charles Kane Jr. looks to have murder indictment dismissed in death of 3-year-old
CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE - Murder suspect Charles Kane Jr.'s attorney, John Tumelty, said Thursday he plans to make a motion to dismiss the murder indictment against his client based on the Prosecutor's Office's presentation to the grand jury.
Kane, 35, of Lower Township, is charged with killing 3-year-old Elijah Ulbrich. The boy was found unresponsive in his North Wildwood home Feb. 25, 2010, and was in a coma until he died on March 17, 2010. Prosecutors charge that Kane beat the young boy while he was babysitting him.
Kane had been expected to plead guilty to aggravated manslaughter in October, but he chose not to take part in the plea agreement, which came with a 20-year prison term. He faces between 30 years to life in prison if convicted of the murder charge.
On Thursday, Tumelty said he would file a motion to dismiss the murder charge based on the instructions given to the grand jury that handed up the indictment.
Tumelty said Kane is charged with non-intentional serious bodily injury, murder, and he questioned the way the definition of that specific charge was given.
"We're challenging the prosecutor's explanation of the law to the grand jury," Tumelty said.
In 2009, a Cape May County judge dismissed another murder indictment in the case of George J. Carty III following questions about that grand jury presentation. In that case, the judge found the state's witnesses mischaracterized key pieces of evidence. Carty was re-indicted 13 days later.
Tumelty, who is Kane's new attorney, is still reviewing discovery in the case, which First Assistant Prosecutor J. David Meyer said was quite voluminous at about 1,500 pages.
The two will present their arguments on the motion to dismiss to Superior Court Judge Kyran Connor on April 11.

Cape May grand jury indicts Lower Township man for murder in 3-year-old's death
Mon Apr 11, 2011.

Cape May grand jury indicts Lower Township man for murder in 3-year-old's death By TRUDI GILFILLIAN, Staff Writer pressofAtlanticCity.com | 0 comments
CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE - A grand jury Tuesday indicted Charles R. Kane Jr. on a first-degree murder charge for the second time in connection with the death of 3-year-old Elijah Ulbrich.
Kane, 35, of Lower Township, was first indicted on the murder charge and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, both second-degree crimes, on Dec. 7, 2010.
The county Prosecutor's Office alleges that on Feb. 25, 2010, while Kane was babysitting the boy in his North Wildwood home, Kane beat Elijah.
The boy was taken to Cooper University Hospital in Camden for his injuries, but he died at the hospital on March 17 after being in a coma for three weeks.
An autopsy found he died from blunt head trauma or complications from suffering blunt head trauma.
First Assistant Prosecutor J. David Meyer said Tuesday that the case was presented to a second grand jury because there was an omission in the original court record regarding at what point the first grand jury returned its true bill.
In addition, a legal instruction was clarified the second time around, he said.
According to the indictment, the second grand jury found that Kane had endangered Elijah's welfare "by willfully failing to obtain timely emergency medical treatment for Elijah Ulbrich for the serious bodily injury inflicted by Charles Richard Kane Jr."
Defense attorney John Tumelty, representing Kane, filed a motion to dismiss the first indictment based on the Prosecutor's Office instructions to the grand jury. That motion is scheduled to be heard April 11.
Kane is charged with nonintentional serious bodily injury, murder, and Tumelty questioned the way the definition of that specific charge was given to grand jurors in the first indictment.
Kane had been expected to plead guilty to aggravated manslaughter in October, but he opted not to take the plea agreement, which came with a 20-year prison term. He faces between 30 years to life in prison if convicted of murder.
Elijah's father, Richard Ulbrich, said Tuesday that he welcomed the news of the second indictment.
"We're happy with it," he said.

Lower Township's Charles Kane admits he caused North Wildwood boy's fatal skull fracture


Charles Kane Jr. is on trial in murder of 3-year-old Elijah Ulbrich, of North Wildwood.


Submitted photo
Elijah Ulbrich


Submitted
Elijah with his mother Christina and father Richard Ulbrich.



Posted: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 12:15 am | Updated: 4:24 pm, Wed May 9, 2012.
By TRUDI GILFILLIAN Staff Writer


CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE — Two years after 3-year-old Elijah Ulbrich died, Charles R. Kane Jr. admitted in court Tuesday that he shoved the North Wildwood boy’s head against a refrigerator door with such force that it fractured the boy’s skull.

“Did you shove him into the refrigerator with a significant amount of force causing him to hit his head,” defense attorney John Tumelty asked.

“Yes,” Kane replied.

Kane, 37, made the admission as part of a plea agreement for which the Lower Township man will receive a 15-year prison term for pleading guilty to first-degree aggravated manslaughter in connection with Elijah’s March 17, 2010 death.

Before Kane spoke, First Assistant Prosecutor J. David Meyer told Superior Court Judge Batten that doctors who examined Elijah found the severity of the injury consistent with a child being struck with a baseball bat, falling from a second-story building or being in a serious motor vehicle collision.

“Elijah, at the time of this incident, was an otherwise healthy 3-year-old boy,” Meyer said as the boy’s parents, Richard and Christina Ulbrich, sat across the courtroom from Kane.

Kane’s plea came in the midst of a two-day hearing concerning statements he gave to police Feb. 25 and Feb. 26, 2010, in the hours after Elijah was injured.

A video recording of Kane’s interview with Sgt. Stephen Vivarina, of the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office, was being played in the courtroom Tuesday morning when Kane turned to Tumelty and told him he was ready to plead guilty.

During the interview, conducted at the North Wildwood Police Department, Vivarina continued to press Kane to be honest and tell the police what happened to Elijah at the boy’s Walnut Avenue home on the night of Feb. 25.

Kane had been baby-sitting the boy while Christina Ulbrich went to a Laundromat. At some point, Elijah wet his pants and by the time his mother came home, the child was unresponsive and unconscious.

“I’m tired of you just sitting here lying,” Vivarina told Kane as he continued to question him.

Kane said he had gone to the bathroom and when he came out he found Elijah curled up on the floor. He changed the boy’s wet pants and then punished him by having him stand with his head against a refrigerator door, Kane said. A short time later he placed him in his bed, he said.

But his words did not explain why Elijah was found unconscious when his mother returned.

“I am not listening to your lies. I’m done with your lies,” Vivarina said.

Vivarina told Kane to “be a man” and tell “what happened in that house tonight.”

Moments later, the recording was stopped and the attorneys told the judge a plea was possible.

Kane had been expected to plead guilty as early as October 2010 to aggravated manslaughter, but on each occasion when a plea was anticipated he changed his mind.

This time, after watching the interview, he opted to accept a plea offer.

Kane spoke softly at first and was asked to speak up twice as he answered Tumelty’s questions.

Tumelty asked if Kane was upset because the boy wet his pants and if he intended to discipline him.

Kane said he was upset as he pushed the boy into the refrigerator door.

Tumelty asked if Kane knew that the force he used caused a skull fracture.

“I learned that later. Yes, sir,” Kane said as he admitted being reckless for using such force on the 30-pound boy. Elijah died several weeks later on March 17, 2010.

In exchange for pleading guilty to first-degree aggravated manslaughter, Kane, who had been facing a murder charge, will be sentenced May 9 to 15 years in state prison.

He must serve at least 85 percent of that term under the state’s No Early Release Act before becoming eligible for parole, and he will also be subject to five years of parole supervision upon his release.

Outside the courtroom, Richard Ulbrich said he disagreed with the prison term.

“I don’t think 15 years is enough time,” Richard Ulbrich said.

Christina Ulbrich agreed.

“I’m in shock. I don’t have anything to say right now,” she said. “I don’t think 15 years is enough. I still want to know what happened.”

Meyer did not comment on the plea, but Tumelty said it was a case in which “both sides were equally dissatisfied with the resolution.”

“It was a very, very difficult case. The evidence on the videotape was very compelling for the state and very damaging to the defense,” he said.

Tumelty said there was a strong likelihood that had Kane been convicted at trial he could have ended up with a much lengthier sentence. A murder conviction could have led to a life sentence, requiring Kane to have served at least 30 years before he could be paroled.


http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/lower-township-s-charles-kane-admits-he-caused-north-wildwood/article_c0f3f436-7829-11e1-838d-0019bb2963f4.html

North Wildwood parents say 15-year sentence not long enough in killing of 3-year-old son



Dale Gerhard
Charles Kane Jr. was sentenced in Cape May County Superior Court to 15 years in prison for the 2010 death of three year old Elijah Ulbrich, of North Wildwood. Kane, at left, speaks to attorney John Tumelty.




Posted: Thursday, May 10, 2012 1:30 am | Updated: 7:44 am, Thu May 10, 2012.
By TRUDI GILFILLIAN, Staff Writer



Charles Kane Jr. first met Elijah Ulbrich when Elijah was just 10 months old, his parents recalled.

They met Kane, a Lower Township resident, through mutual friends and allowed him to baby-sit Elijah because he often baby-sat for other families they knew.

Christina and Richard Ulbrich stood just feet from Kane on Wednesday as he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for killing the little boy.

“Our son was stolen from us by a monster,” Christina Ulbrich told Superior Court Judge Raymond Batten.

She cried as she spoke about her son’s death and the effect it has had on her family.

“I don’t think this is something we can forgive,” she said.

The couple told the judge of all that they would miss — never having the chance to watch their son grow, go to school or meet his first girlfriend.

Elijah was 3 years old on Feb. 25, 2010, the day Kane shoved the little boy’s head against a refrigerator door at the family’s North Wildwood home.

As part of his March 27 plea hearing, Kane told the judge that he was angry because the boy had wet his pants.

During that hearing, Kane, 37, was asked by his attorney, John Tumelty, “Did you shove him into the refrigerator with a significant amount of force causing him to hit his head?”

Kane said yes.

Elijah’s skull fractured and the injury led to his death weeks later on March 17 at Cooper University Hospital in Camden after what First Assistant Prosecutor J. David Meyer called a “courageous fight on that young boy’s part.”

Kane long denied causing the boy’s death, but on the day of the plea, after watching his videotaped statement, he chose to admit his guilt.

“Here was a gentleman who was temporarily brought into the trust of the mother of this child,” Meyer said, adding that Elijah’s head “was slammed against the front of that refrigerator.”

Christina Ulbrich went to do laundry and left Kane at the family’s North Wildwood apartment with Elijah.

When she returned, the boy was unconscious. A doctor later told prosecutors that the injury was akin to having been hit on the head with a baseball bat, thrown from the second-floor of a building or involved in a serious automobile collision.

Tumelty told the court that Kane, a father of two children and a nine-year Navy veteran who had served in Iraq and Kuwait, had no prior felony convictions, though he had been arrested for disorderly persons offenses, including drug possession and violating restraining orders.

He said there had been some good in Kane’s life, but he was plagued by post-traumatic stress disorder and a history of alcohol and drug abuse.

The night Elijah was hurt, Tumelty said, there was likely “a confluence of difficult forces going on in his head.”

Meyer said Kane was evaluated by two doctors, who found he had a tendency to “engage in impulsively violent outbursts.”

Kane’s admission, however, did not ease the burden on Elijah’s parents, who continued to adamantly oppose the plea deal.

“I don’t think justice was served,” Christina Ulbrich told the judge.

Meyer told the judge that while the family was aware of the plea they did not support it. He said it came together because of some witnesses’ credibility issues and to eliminate the stress of a trial on the family.

As Batten proceeded with the sentencing, he said the boy did nothing more than wet his pants, something any 3-year-old might do.
Then, “the defendant lost his temper, became enraged to the point that he pushed, if he did not slam, the infant’s head into the refrigerator,” Batten said.

Batten acknowledged the family’s suffering. “There are no appropriate words to describe the loss,” he said.

He found that Kane was likely to re-offend and he said the 15-year prison term, subject to the state’s No Early Release Act, should send a message that “such lethal conduct will be dealt with appropriately and severely.”

Kane must serve 85 percent of the sentence before becoming eligible for parole. He would also be subject to five years’ parole supervision.

Outside the courthouse, after the sentence, Elijah’s parents said they were disappointed with the sentence and would have preferred to take the case to trial in hopes of a longer sentence.

“He can still live a life,” Richard Ulbrich said. “It really isn’t fair.”

“You can get away with anything in this county,” Christina Ulbrich said, pointing to other recent plea agreements in the county, such as the one given to Paul Olexa, charged in the shooting death of Samuel Schmucker. Olexa is expected to receive a five-year prison term later this month.

“In 10 years, Kane can go out and murder another child,” Christina Ulbrich said.

Richard Ulbrich added, “Fifteen years doesn’t send a message to anybody.”
.
But the couple also spoke of the memories they share.

“His favorite thing was the Phillies,” Richard Ulbrich said of his son. “Even if it was the Flyers or the Eagles playing, he would yell, ‘Phillies.’”

Christina Ulbrich said Elijah loved to make people smile.

“And he loved his cat, Pedro. He loved his grandparents. He was a happy little boy,” Christina Ulbrich said.


http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/charles-kane-jr-sentenced-to-years-in-prison-in-death/article_bf16eb26-99ff-11e1-b417-001a4bcf887a.html