HARMONE'E ELAM - 2 Months/ Accused: Roderick Elam - Colorado Springs CO

Police on Wednesday arrested a 20-year-old Fort Carson soldier in connection with the death of his 2-month-old daughter.

Pfc. Roderick Elam Jr. was held on suspicion of child abuse resulting
in death, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department. He is
being held booked in El Paso County jail in lieu of $250,000 bail.

The baby, Harmone’e Elam, was taken on Thursday afternoon to Memorial
Hospital after she stopped breathing at an apartment at 4064
Westmeadow Drive, police said. She died a short time later of what were
later determined to be blunt force injuries to her head and abdomen,
police said.

The El Paso County Coroner ruled her death a homicide,
the 32nd this year in Colorado Springs. The previous single-year record
for homicides in Colorado Springs was 28, a mark set in 2007 and 1991.

There were 24 homicides last year in Colorado Springs.

Elam, who is assigned to the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 4th
Infantry Division at Fort Carson, was identified as a suspect after an
investigation by the police department's homicide detectives and the
Crimes Against Children Unit.

Elam's arrest marks the seventh caregiver to be arrested this year in
Colorado Springs on suspicion of killing a child under the age of 2.
Prosecutors later declined to file charges against one of those
arrested.

One other child was killed this year in the Pikes Peak region. Gavin
Paolini, 2, was fatally shot in May inside a Fountain house by his
father during a murder-suicide.

Read more: http://www.gazette.com/articles/old-130578-death-arrested.html#ixzz1hEUJOPBd

@4thJudicialDA
Pre-Trial Readiness Conference @ 10: Roderick Elam, Jr. Div. 19. (Felony count of Child Abuse-Knowing/Recklessly Causing Death) #2011CR4439
10:47 AM - 3 May

Colorado Springs mom gets six years for failing to get help for infant
Friday, November 8, 2013
By Lance Benzel

A Colorado Springs woman was sentenced Friday to six years in prison for failing to get help after her husband inflicted fatal injuries on their 2-month-old daughter.

In sentencing 21-year-old Lakeria Shazarae Grant, 4th Judicial District Judge Robin Chittum said Grant should have recognized that Harmone'e Elam had been gravely injured in December 2012 based on the infant's symptoms, which included sleepiness, vomiting, shallow breathing, moaning and other signs of distress.


"There wasn't just a red flag," Chittum told the woman. "There was a red flag, flashing lights and sirens going that you should have taken the baby to the hospital."

Prosecutors say the child was severely beaten by Grant's husband, then-Fort Carson soldier Roderick Elam, apparently during a period when Grant was away from their Colorado Springs apartment laundering Elam's uniform.

Instead of promptly getting her medical attention, the couple instead bathed the child and waited some six hours to summon help.

By then, the infant was not breathing. An autopsy later found Harmone'e had suffered severe brain injuries and a lacerated liver.

Elam, who was convicted at a January trial of causing the injuries, was sentenced that month to serve 32 years in prison, court records show.

Grant's penalty was imposed after a nearly three-hour long hearing in which attorneys clashed over whether Grant understood the severity of her daughter's condition.

Her attorney, Shimon Kohn, argued the woman suffers from "an intellectual deficit" and was likely beaten by Elam, whom he described as a "huckster" who wed Grant at a young age after falsely claiming to be a Baptist minister like her father.

Prosecutor Gail Warkentin countered that even as Grant showed little emotion over her daughter's death, she lashed out in defense of Elam after prosecutors filed charges against him. The woman refused to cooperate with the prosecution, and was eventually charged after prosecutors concluded that early medical intervention might have saved the child's life.

"You put this little baby behind Mr. Elam over and over and over again," Chittum said. "That's the part that frightens me about this."

While on bail prior to his conviction, Elam ignored court orders confining him to Fort Carson and returned to his wife's apartment.

Although he was away without leave from Fort Carson, the Army failed to notify prosecutors for approximately a month, The Gazette reported last year.

During that period, Elam and Grant conceived a second child. That girl, Melody, is in the care of Grant's parents, prosecutors said.

http://m.gazette.com/colorado-springs-mom-gets-six-years-for-failing-to-get-help-for-infant/article/1509057

Far too little, far too late.  I do love it when these POS mothers go to prison.  It happens far too seldom.

Why do scum like this continue to breed?