JOSELYNN URQUIA -8 weeks- (2010) Easton PA

Easton man admits killing eight-week-old daughter


He punched her at least twice Dec. 19 because she wouldn't stop crying.


10:56 p.m. EDT, May 5, 2011

The first photo showed a beautiful baby girl, healthy and smiling.

The second, taken two weeks later, showed her dead in a morgue, her mouth open and bruising across much of one side of her face.

On Thursday, the girl's father, Joseph A. Urquia, pleaded guilty to beating her to death Dec. 19 at their Easton home, admitting he punched her "at least twice" in the head because she wouldn't stop crying.

Urquia, who has a history of child abuse, faces a maximum of 20 to 40 years in prison for the third-degree murder of 8-week-old Joselynn Urquia.
"He held her in his right hand and punched her twice with his left hand. At least twice," Northampton County First Deputy District Attorney Terence Houck recounted, later handing a series of photos of the girl to Judge Paula Roscioli.

According to court records filed by police, Urquia at first claimed he had dropped Joselynn in their N. Seventh Street apartment, but later admitted hitting her in the head because he was "frustrated and angry" that he couldn't console her.

The baby became "lifeless and unresponsive" after the blows, Urquia told investigators. Joselynn died two days later after being taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest with serious head injuries.

The plea was made at Urquia's arraignment, the earliest possible time. The girl's mother, Brenda de la Cruz, sat in the jury box with drawn face, dabbing her eyes and leaning to hear a Spanish interpreter.

Under the plea agreement, Urquia waived any appeals, except over the sentence he receives. It came as prosecutors could have sought a first-degree murder conviction and the death penalty, and as Urquia's defense argued he was an unequipped parent who "just lost it."

"You did not intend to kill Joselynn?" defense lawyer Gary Asteak asked Urquia.

"Never," Urquia said.

Third-degree murder is a killing done with "malice," a legal term that means Urquia acted with a willful disregard for the risk of death his actions created.

"You are admitting that you in fact struck your infant child on numerous occasions, which caused her death?" Roscioli asked Urquia.

"Yes, your honor," said Urquia, who spoke in a clear voice, with puffy eyes but no outward display of emotion.

Urquia faces sentencing June 9, and Roscioli ordered him to undergo psychological and drug and alcohol evaluations.
Afterward, Houck said the plea was appropriate given the facts of the case. Houck will be asking for Urquia to get the maximum sentence allowed.

"This was a situation where he assaulted this child in the course of a very few short minutes or seconds," Houck said. "It was not something that the defendant planned out, but in the same respect, he did it with great anger and with great force."

Houck added: "He did it without regard at all to the value of Joselynn's life."

Asteak called the murder a "tragedy of epic proportions."

"He's a 21-year-old who is holding down a full-time job, going to school, two infants on his hands and he just snapped," Asteak said. "A crying child on this Sunday morning just caused him to do the unthinkable."

Urquia, who is bipolar, was on probation at the time for abusing his and de la Cruz's older daughter.

In 2009, he admitted spanking that girl, who was 3 months old at the time, so hard it caused a large bruise across her buttocks. He pleaded guilty to simple assault, a misdemeanor.

At Thursday's proceeding, Roscioli noted Urquia lied to doctors who treated Joselynn, claiming she had fallen and not been struck. Roscioli asked Houck whether it would have made a difference if he had been truthful.

"No one on Earth" can answer that definitively, Houck said.

"I can only tell you that no good can come from a [medical] history that isn't true," he said.

http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-easton-baby-murder-child-abuse-20110505,0,4343764.story

Another POS father proving he's a man by beating a helpless baby to death. The baby fell is pretty used up as an excuse.

RIH

The mother knew he likes to beat on babies. Where was she? Why was the baby alone with a baby abuser?

Easton Man Sentenced After Admitting Role In Infant's Death

July 26, 2011

EASTON, Pa. -- An Easton man who pleaded guilty to killing his infant daughter has learned his fate.

Joseph Urquia was sentenced Tuesday morning to 20 to 40 years in prison.

In May, he pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in connection with his daughter's death.

Investigators said that last December, he punched his daughter because she wouldn't stop crying.

She died after spending two days in the hospital.
http://www.wfmz.com/lehighvalleynews/28669565/detail.html

Before he beat to death his 8-week-old daughter, an Easton man with a
history of child abuse had taken the steps the system asked of him.
Joseph
A. Urquia had completed anger management and parenting classes, and
followed the directions of his Northampton County caseworkers. Just the
day before Urquia stuck baby Joselynn Urquia "at least twice" in the
head, he'd gone to a health clinic where he received family therapy.





That's
what is so disturbing about his case, Bernie Mikulski, his probation
officer, said Friday. Despite getting continuing help from the county
after he assaulted an older daughter in 2009, Urquia still killed her
little sister.



"He was compliant. He did everything the court asked to
rehabilitate offenders," Mikulski said. "And that's what frightens me
the most."


Urquia is already serving 20 to 40 years after admitting to
the third-degree murder of Joselynn, who died two days after she was
assaulted by her father Dec. 19 because she wouldn't stop crying. Now,
the 22-year-old inmate will have another two to four years on top of
that, after Judge Leonard Zito re-sentenced him for the earlier abuse of
his other child.
In doing so, Zito said his original 18-month
probationary sentence for simple assault was clearly "improvident" and
failed to recognize the "propensities of Mr. Urquia."
"He didn't
do everything he was supposed to do," First Deputy District Attorney
Terence Houck said, "because he wasn't supposed to raise a hand against
his children."
In Urquia's earlier case, he was charged after his
older daughter, 3 months old at the time, was taken in July 2009 to
Warren Hospital with a large bruise across her buttocks. Urquia told an
Easton detective he had spanked the girl "out of frustration," police
said.
In the death of Joselynn, Urquia at first claimed he had
dropped her in their N. Seventh Street apartment, but later acknowledged
hitting her because he was "frustrated and angry." The girl became
"lifeless and unresponsive" after the blows, Urquia told investigators.
On
Friday, defense lawyer Gary Asteak noted that Urquia faces deportation
to his native Venezuela after he completes his prison term. Asteak
unsuccessfully asked Zito to run the new sentence alongside Urquia's
other one.
"He's gotten the point," Asteak said. "Society has gotten the point."
Urquia told Zito that he knows he made a mistake, and said he never intended to kill his daughter.
"I'm sick and I need to take some psychological classes for it," he said.


http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-easton-baby-murder-probation-20110812,0,5048717.story

babies have no other way of communication. besides his agitation probably made her cry to begin with! i really think that some of the punishment for these ppl ought to be by someone nicknamed tiny or butch doing to them what they did to these poor children. the excuses just kill me!!

I hope this murder stays in jail 40 years so he can't harm another child. Anyone that strikes a newborn baby to cause a severe bruise shouldn't be around children. What the h@ll is wrong with a woman that would have more kids with an abuser. I'm so sick of this but it will never end. I thought animal abuse was bad but I think child abuse is more prevalent and that's very very sad.