ELI GABRIEL RICHARD - 2 months - /Accused Angel Richard Fort Smith AR

Friend: Mom Nixed Doctor Visit For Baby


Angel Richard

Posted: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 8:38 am
Updated: 4:20 pm, Wed Jan 11, 2012.

By Jeff Arnold

A woman who befriended Angel Nichole Richard told a Sebastian
County jury Monday she “begged” Richard to get medical attention
for her infant son, but Richard refused.

Richard, 21, is accused of intentionally injuring her then
2-month-old son, Eli Gabriel Richard, and causing him to become
malnourished. She is charged with first-degree battery; her trial
began Monday.

Susan Victoriano testified that when she ran into Richard
pushing a stroller with Eli in it on March 16, “He looked like he
was dying.”

Victoriano said the infant had bruises all over his face and
what appeared to be blood on his nose, was whimpering and hardly
moving.

After she unsuccessfully pleaded for 10 to 15 minutes with
Richard to take her son to the hospital, Victoriano called
police.

“It hurt me to do that, but Eli didn’t ask to be born,”
Victoriano said.
Victoriano testified she’d become friends with Angel Richard
after first being friends with her mother.

After police arrived, Eli Richard was transported to Sparks
Regional Medical Center. Dr. Chester Carlson, the emergency room
doctor on duty, treated him.

Carlson described Eli Richard as “emaciated,” having signs of
dehydration, malnourishment and bruising on his head he could not
have inflicted on himself.

Based on his initial examination, Carlson ordered a CAT scan and
full-body X-ray for Eli Richard, which revealed hemorrhages on both
sides of his brain and a fracture of his lower left leg.

In opening argument, deputy prosecutor Aaron Jennen told jurors
they will hear evidence Eli Richard was squeezed so hard he
suffered damage to the surface of bones in both arms, multiple rib
fractures and a spiral fracture of his lower left leg.

A pediatrician who specializes in child abuse is scheduled to
testify today.

Under cross-examination by public defender Tim Sharum, Carlson
agreed that a report made when Eli Richard was seen in the
emergency room on March 10 made no mention of obvious signs of
trauma.
However, based on the coloring of the bruise, Carlson said it
was “very plausible” it wasn’t there on March 10, when Eli Richard
was seen because he had diarrhea and a possible respiratory
problem.

Brook Harrell, a child abuse investigator for the Sebastian
County office of the Arkansas Department of Human Services Division
of Children and Family Services, testified that Eli Richard “looked
like a perfect baby” on Feb. 14, but by March 16, he looked
“pitiful.”

Harrell first saw Eli Richard and his mother when she was
investigating an allegation that Angel Richard had shaken her son,
wasn’t feeding him correctly and was providing inadequate
supervision.

Harrell noted in a report that she filed, and about which Sharum
asked her several questions, that Eli Richard appeared to be
well-nourished and showed no signs of previous or current abuse or
neglect, that she had no concerns about his welfare and that the
allegation was unsubstantiated.

In his opening argument, Jennen alleged that Eli Richard became
malnourished some time after Harrell’s investigation.
He told jurors that Eli Richard weighed 7.14 pounds at his
two-month checkup, but only 7 pounds when he arrived at Sparks on
March 16.

According to records of his March 10 visit to the emergency
room, Eli Richard weighed 7.1 pounds on that day.

If a child Eli Richard’s age is being provided with adequate
calories and suffers no genetic disorder preventing it, he should
gain about one ounce per day, Carlson told jurors.

In his opening argument, Sharum said Angel Richard had no
business being a mother, was “wholly unprepared” to be a parent and
was responsible for her son’s injuries. Sharum said Angel Richard
has borderline intellectual functioning, came from a “nonfunctional
family” with no father, “barely” had a mother and has
anger-management problems.

However, Sharum said Angel Richard didn’t knowingly and
intentionally injure her son, and therefore is not guilty of
first-degree battery.

“If she was charged with being negligent or a bad mother, she’s
guilty as charged,” Sharum said.

Victoriano testified that she tried to help Angel Richard
prepare for motherhood, both while she was pregnant and after Eli
Richard was born, but Angel Richard refused any help from her and
others.

Harrell testified that Angel Richard was receiving Women,
Infants and Children (WIC) vouchers to purchase formula and
Medicaid for her son and was informed about other services
available to her through DHS.

First-degree battery under most circumstances is also a B
felony, but Angel Richard is charged under a subsection of the law
that makes it a Y felony because the victim is younger than 4. A
Class Y felony is punishable by 10 to 40 years or life in
prison.

Melissa Ann Workman, 21, and Ricky Joe Bruner Sr., 34, with whom
Angel Richard was living when she was arrested, were convicted of
first-degree battery in December involving their then-2-month-old
son. Workman was sentenced to life in prison, while Bruner was
sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Testimony is scheduled to resume today at 8:30 a.m.

http://www.swtimes.com/news/article_3ff14f72-3b99-11e1-9233-001871e3ce6c.html

Fort Smith Mother Partially Confessed In Police Video To Abusing Son


Angel Richard

Posted: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 9:28 am
Updated: 4:20 pm, Wed Jan 11, 2012.

By Jeff Arnold
|
A Fort Smith woman charged with first-degree battery in the
abuse of her infant son provided police with a partial confession
in two interviews played for a Sebastian County jury Tuesday.

Angel Nichole Richard, 21, is accused of knowingly injuring her
then 2-month-old son, Eli Gabriel Richard, and causing him to
become malnourished.

Before jurors viewed Richard’s interviews, they heard testimony
from Dr. Karen Farst, a pediatrician at Arkansas Children’s
Hospital who specializes in treating abused children.

Farst detailed the injuries suffered by Eli Richard, including
multiple fractures, brain hemorrhaging and malnourishment.
X-rays and a “bone scan” revealed Eli Richard suffered damage to
the bone surface on his right upper arm and left forearm, fractures
at the top and bottom of his left lower leg, at least two rib
fractures and a spiral fracture of his right lower leg, Farst told
jurors.

The fractures and injuries to the right upper arm and left
forearm were in different stages of healing.
Farst also told jurors that blunt force trauma to Eli Richard’s
head caused hemorrhages on both sides of his brain, which destroyed
some of the surrounding brain tissue.

With regard to malnourishment, the doctor testified that
although Eli Richard wasn’t malnourished since birth, he did go
through a period of severe malnutrition leading up to his admission
to Sparks Regional Medical Center on March 16.
In an interview with detective Mike McCoy, Fort Smith police, on
March 16 and again on March 17, Angel Richard slowly admitted
mistreating her son.

Initially, she claimed her son was a poor feeder, denied
knowledge of how he was injured and suggested he was injured by
someone who baby-sat for her.

As McCoy continued to point out that her explanations weren’t
plausible, Angel Richard told him she accidentally injured her son
and she had an anger management problem, which caused her to scream
at him, but “I don’t lay my hands on him out of anger.”

Before the end of the first interview, Angel Richard told McCoy
she did “get rough” with her son when she got mad.

During the March 17 interview, Angel Richard told McCoy she fed
her son multiple times a day when he was born Dec. 28, 2010, until
late February, early March 2011, when she started feeding him only
once or twice a day.
Angel Richard told McCoy she got lazy and would forget about
feedings or “sleep through feedings and just don’t feel like waking
up.”
It was around the same time Angel Richard told McCoy she began
physically abusing her son.

“I got mad … that’s why I started, you know, doing what I do to
Eli because I got mad because I couldn’t have my life (hanging out
and partying with friends),” Richard said during the interview.
Angel Richard also told McCoy, “That baby didn’t deserve what I
did to him.”

Public defender Tim Sharum, representing Angel Richard, told the
jury in his opening Monday that his client is responsible for her
son’s injuries, but she isn’t guilty of first-degree battery.

Deputy prosecutor Aaron Jennen must prove Angel Richard
knowingly injured her son “under circumstances manifesting extreme
indifference to the value of human life,” for the jury to
convict.

After the state rested, Circuit Court Judge Michael Fitzhugh
heard testimony — outside the presence of the jury — from a
counselor Sharum wanted to call as a defense witness.
Jamie Risley, a counselor with Arkansas Counseling Services,
worked with Angel Richard from January 2007 until October 2008,
when a dependency-neglect proceeding was opened in juvenile
court.

Risley became visibly upset when describing the emotional abuse
inflicted on Angel Richard by her mother, her mother’s boyfriend
and the boyfriend’s mother in a home where Risley said “nobody
loved her (Angel Richard).”

But under cross-examination by Jennen, Risley said she couldn’t
offer an opinion on Angel Richard’s state of mind when it’s alleged
she abused her son.

Because she couldn’t testify to Angel Richard’s mental state,
Fitzhugh ruled she wouldn’t be allowed to testify in the
guilt-innocence phase of the trial.

However, Fitzhugh said if the trial does reach a sentencing
phase, her testimony could be presented by the defense as a
mitigating factor.

Jurors heard from an emergency room doctor who saw Eli Richard
at Sparks on March 10.

Dr. Robert Lane said he noted no injuries or signs of
dehydration or malnourishment during his exam of Eli.
Lane said he would have documented those findings had he
observed them and contacted the Department of Human Services.
However, Lane did say if he had been aware Eli Richard weighed
less than a pound more than his Dec. 28, 2010, birth weight when he
saw him on March 10, he would have admitted him.

The jury also heard from Sara Kilgore, a psychological examiner,
who administered an intelligence test to Angel Richard in 2006 that
revealed an I.Q. of 78, which is defined as borderline intellectual
functioning.

Closing arguments in the case are scheduled to begin today after
9 a.m.

http://www.swtimes.com/news/article_50019914-3c69-11e1-9acd-001871e3ce6c.html

Someone with an IQ of 78 has enough intelligence to know a baby needs to be fed and should never be beaten and abused.

Sebastian Jury Sentences Fort Smith Mom To 40 Years

Richard Convicted Of First-Degree Battery For Child Injuries

Posted: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 4:17 pm
Updated: 5:30 pm, Wed Jan 11, 2012.

By Jeff Arnold

Angel Nichole Richard stood in a Sebastian County courtroom
Wednesday and asked to be forgiven moments after a jury recommended
she be sentenced to 40 years in prison.

The 11-woman, one-man jury deliberated for just more than an
hour before finding Richard, 21, guilty of first-degree battery for
knowingly injuring her then-2-month-old son, Eli Gabriel Richard,
and causing him to become malnourished.



The jury was out for about two hours to consider its sentence
recommendation.

Richard faced the courtroom gallery thanking “everybody” for the
compassion they’ve shown her son, and apologizing for hurting him,
saying she wished she could take it back before asking for
forgiveness.

“Can you please find it in your hearts to forgive me,” Angel
Richard said.

She also asked that Eli Richard’s foster parents continue to
care for him and treat him like he’s their own.

Sebastian County Circuit Court Judge Michael Fitzhugh had stern
words for Angel Richard before imposing the sentence jurors
recommended.

“There is no excuse in the court’s opinion for the abuse the 2-
to 3-month-old baby had to endure … just no excuse for it,”
Fitzhugh said.

Eli Richard suffered damage to the bone surface on his right
upper arm and left forearm, fractures at the top and bottom of his
left lower leg, at least two rib fractures and a spiral fracture of
his right lower leg, according to a pediatrician from Arkansas
Children’s hospital who testified Tuesday.

The pediatrician told jurors that Eli Richard also went through
a period of severe malnutrition before he was admitted to Sparks
Regional Medical Center on March 16.

A woman who had befriended Angel Richard called police that day
when she saw Eli Richard with bruises all over his face, a bloody
nose and barely moving and Angel Richard refused to seek medical
attention for the child.

When detective Mike McCoy, Fort Smith police, interviewed her,
Richard ultimately confessed to injuring her son and only feeding
him once or twice a day from the end of February until he was taken
to the emergency room.

Angel Richard told McCoy she got lazy and would forget about
feedings or “sleep through feedings and just don’t feel like waking
up.”

It was around the same time Angel Richard told McCoy she began
physically abusing her son.

“I got mad … that’s why I started, you know, doing what I do to
Eli because I got mad because I couldn’t have my life (hanging out
and partying with friends),” Richard said during the interview
played for jurors Tuesday.

In his closing argument, deputy prosecutor Aaron Jennen called
Angel Richard a “monster” and urged jurors to recommend a life
sentence — telling jurors she repeatedly beat and starved her
son.

But public defender Tim Sharum, representing Angel Richard,
argued that a life sentence wasn’t appropriate, urging jurors to
use their wisdom and judgment in recommending sentence.
“Don’t give up on compassion,” Sharum said.

Sharum also told jurors that testimony he presented about Angel
Richard’s childhood wasn’t for sympathy, but because they had a
right to know her background.

Jamie Risley, a mental health para-professional with Arkansas
Counseling Services, worked with Angel Richard from January 2007
until October 2008, when a ”family in need of services” case was
opened in juvenile court.

Risley told jurors that Angel Richard’s case was the “saddest
case I ever had,” since she began working with abused, neglected
and at-risk children in 1999.

After working with Angel Richard and her mother for several
months, Risley said she recommended Angel Richard be placed outside
the home because of unrelenting emotional abuse to which she was
subjected by her mother and other members of her family.
When Sharum asked Risley to describe Angel Richard’s home,
Risley responded, “I wouldn’t call it a home.”

Under cross-examination by Jennen, Risley conceded she’d never
seen Angel Richard subjected to the physical abuse and starvation
that Angel Richard inflicted on her son.

Risley also said her only contact with Angel Richard since
October 2008 was two phone calls.

Near the end of his closing argument, Sharum cited Angel
Richard’s case as a “failure of society and a failure of
family.”

But Jennen took strong exception to the characterization.
Jennen reminded jurors that the Department of Human Services,
Angel Richard’s aunt and one of Angel Richard’s friends all offered
her help with caring for Eli Richard, which she refused.
“Society did everything to help her … she rejected it, she threw
it back in their faces,” Jennen said.

First-degree battery under most circumstances is also a Class B
felony, but Angel Richard was charged under a subsection of the law
that makes it a Y felony because the victim is younger than 4.
A Class Y felony is punishable by 10 to 40 years or life in
prison.
She could be eligible for parole in as few as 10 years.
Melissa Ann Workman, 21, and Ricky Joe Bruner Sr., 34, with whom
Angel Richard was living when she was arrested, were convicted of
first-degree battery in December involving their then-2-month-old
son.

Workman was sentenced to life in prison, while Bruner was
sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Ricklefs testified that Eli Richard is developmentally delayed
and in occupational, speech and physical therapy but is
progressing.

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