RICHARD ADIAN GRIMES - 17 Months (2008) - Myrtle Beach NC

A 32-year-old man was indicted by an Horry County grand jury on a
charge of homicide by child abuse in the 2008 death of his girlfriend's
17-month-old grandson, according to the 15th Circuit Solicitor's
Office.Robert A. Palmer and Julia Shawnette Gorman, 39, faces
charges of aiding and abetting murder/homicide by child abuse, according
to the Horry County public index.Gorman was indicted in February
in the July 16, 2008 death of her grandson.
She was arrested July 18, 2008 after taking the boy, Richard Grimes,
to Conway Medical Center on July 11, 2008, police said.Doctors
reported finding multiple skull fractures less than a week old and the
boy had been in Gorman’s care since July 1, 2008, when his mother,
Gorman’s daughter, went to Arizona on personal business. The boy’s
father was a Marine stationed in Virginia at the time.

Couple indicted on charges of killing toddler
by Graeme Moore
Posted: 06.02.2010 at 6:53 PM


An Horry County grand jury indicted a woman and her boyfriend on charges of homicide by child abuse in the 2008 death of a toddler.

The grand jury returned a true bill indictment for homicide by child abuse for Julia Gorman, 39, and her boyfriend Robert Palmer, 31, both from Galivants Ferry. Palmer was also indicted on a charge of aiding and abetting homicide by child abuse.

Horry County Police said Gorman called for an ambulance to take her 17-month-old grandson to a hospital on July 14, 2008. It was discovered the child suffered from severe skull fractures, and after being flown to MUSC in Charleston, the child died on July 16.

The child's biological parents had signed over guardianship to Gorman after an unrelated illness prevented the child from going back to Arizona with his mother.

The child's father, Richard Grimes, who was stationed on a marine base in Virginia, called Horry County dispatchers that July 14 night and said something wasn't right with his mother-in-law's story.

"I just find something fishy about this, and I want her (Gorman) away from my son," Grimes told the dispatchers.

Police didn't immediately respond after Grimes' call, but they eventually charged Gorman and Palmer.

Gorman also faces an additional charge of unlawful conduct toward a child, a charge for which she was indicted in February 2010.

According to the homicide indictments, Palmer did "inflict fatal injuries that subsequently caused the death" of the child, and Gorman "knowingly aid(ed) and abet(ted) another to commit child abuse and neglect" upon the child.

Carla Grabert-Lowenstein of Myrtle Beach is representing Palmer and Gorman, according to the indictments.

http://www.carolinalive.com/news/story.aspx?id=465350

Raw emotion was visible on many faces Friday in the Horry County
courtroom where circuit court Judge Larry Hyman sentenced a grandmother
and her boyfriend to 35 years in prison for the death of the woman’s
17-month-old grandson.
A jury had deliberated about two hours in
the 2008 beating death case before convicting Julia Shawnette Gorman,
40, and Robert Palmer, 33, of homicide by child abuse, aiding and
abetting homicide by child abuse and unlawful conduct/neglect toward a
child – Richard Aydian Grimes.
Both defendants were sentenced to
serve 35 years in prison on the homicide charge, 20 years for aiding and
abetting and 10 years for the unlawful neglect charge. The sentences
will run concurrently.

“This child received crushing blows to both sides of his head leaving
his skull like a fractured egg shell and I’m sure he experienced a
painful death,” Hyman said. “This was a terrible injury and it was not
one that happened by accident. Whoever did it knew very well what you
were doing and you just did not care, and it callously cost the life
this child.”
Gorman cried soon after the verdicts were read and remained emotional until she was led out of the courtroom after sentencing.
Palmer stood and shook his head in disbelief during most of the hearing.
“I had nothing to do with this. I did nothing wrong with that child,” Palmer said, and asked for help and relief from Hyman.
“You are going to take away my life for something I had nothing to do with.”
Palmer’s
mother, Gail Palmer, also was emotional when she spoke on her son’s
behalf, but she had displayed anger toward Gorman and was warned by an
Horry County Sheriff’s deputy to remain calm in court.
Gail Palmer
demanded that Gorman look at her when she told Hyman she agreed to help
Gorman when the couple was arrested in July 2008.
“Your promise
to me was that ‘if anybody goes down for this it would be me, not your
son,”’ Gail Palmer said, shaking her finger at Gorman while repeating
what she said were Gorman’s words.
“But you did not keep that promise.”
Judy Morris, Gorman’s mother, told Hyman that her daughter was innocent.
“I
know without a doubt she would never harm my great-grandson,” Morris
said, her face flush with emotion as she struggled to gain her
composure.
“She has always been there for her children. She could have never done this.”
The baby’s father, Richard Grimes, tearfully said he understands many people were hurt by Aydian’s death.
Aydian’s mother and Gorman’s daughter, Cesalee Carnaghie, quietly cried during the hearing and did not speak to the judge.
“I
wasn’t around a lot for my son when he was alive . . . but he was taken
from me when I was about to be there for him,” Grimes said. “I can’t
bring him back and I can’t undo what’s been done.”
The boy died
July 16, 2008, after his 22-year-old parents, Grimes and Carnaghie, made
the decision to remove him from life support at the Medical University
of South Carolina in Charleston, where he was being treated after
suffering skull fractures and bleeding in his brain.
The boy was
initially taken to Conway Medical Center a couple days before his death,
and doctors reported finding multiple skull fractures that were less
than a week old, prosecutors said.
Carnaghie left Aydian in
Gorman’s care on July 2, 2008, and had flown to Arizona to pack up her
and Grimes’ belongings to prepare to move to Beaufort, S.C., where
Grimes would be stationed in the Marines.
Carnaghie and Aydian had been staying with her mother in Aynor for about month before she left him.
The
visit was the first time Gorman had seen her grandson, Carnaghie
testified Tuesday. At the time, Grimes was in Virginia completing a
Marine training class when he learned Aydian was hospitalized, according
to his testimony on Tuesday.
Gorman’s attorney, James Galmore,
asked that the verdicts be thrown out because the couple could not be
convicted of being principles in committing the crime and of aiding each
other at the same time.
“The state has not and will not ever be able to tell us what happened.
“We
wish we knew,” Galmore said. “We still don’t know what took place in
that house. She has testified she was not the person who struck those
blows.”
But Assistant Solicitor Candice Lively, who was visibly
emotional after the sentencing, said during the hearing that the couple
was equally involved in the baby’s death.
“We have a dead child and we have two perpetrators, two caretakers of the child,” Lively said.
“Both were involved as principles and in covering up the crimes.”



Read more: http://www.thesunnews.com/2011/11/18/2505863/closing-arguments-to-be-heard.html#ixzz1e7s0YV9b