ALAYJA COLEMAN - 14 mos - / Convicted: Tania Coleman, mother - Erie PA

Baby Found in Suitcase Ruled Homicide

May 25, 2011

ERIE, ERIE COUNTY - The Erie County Coroner has ruled the death of a baby that was found in a suitcase a homicide.

A dead 14-month-old baby was found dead in a suitcase on the side of the
road in Erie on Tuesday. The mother - Tania Coleman, 20 - was arrested,
charged with Endangering the Welfare of Children.

The coroner said the baby died of poor nutrition.

A firefighter made the discovery on the 700 block of East 8th St. while responding to a fire.

Coleman lives just a few houses away from where the baby was found.

Police officers, firefighters and neighbors called it a horrifying scene.

Officials said the baby was deteriorating, and they aren't exactly sure how long it had been there.

Police said the mother came forward on Tuesday and claimed that the baby -
Alayja - was hers. She said Alayja was born on March 4th, 2010.

Police are interviewing family members and friends.

Erie Police Chief Steven Franklin said, "The most obvious factor here is
that a baby's deceased, and no one came forward to report the death of
the baby. So of course we have to look into that."

Number one to determine the cause of the death, and number two to determine the

Coleman has two other children ages 2 and 3. They are staying with relatives, while their mother is in prison.

Police also said that Coleman is pregnant.

http://wearecentralpa.com/wtaj-news-fulltext?nxd_id=278387

Mom charged with starving baby to death

Updated: Thursday, 26 May 2011, 6:02 PM EDT
Published : Thursday, 26 May 2011, 6:02 PM EDT

• Mark Parrotte
  
• Posted by: Eli George
  

ERIE, P.A. (WIVB) - A mother in Erie, Pennsylvania, is charged with an unthinkable crime.
Police charged 20-year-old Tania Coleman with a homicide. Police say her baby died from malnutrition and the body was placed inside a suitcase, which was later found by neighbors. Coleman is behind bars without bail.
Police say she's pregnant and has two other children.
http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/crime/Mom-charged-with-starving-baby-to-death

March 15, 2012

Morning Briefing: Mother of 'suitcase baby' wants jury change


The Tribune-Democrat


PENNSYLVANIA — ERIE — The attorney for an Erie woman accused of starving her
14-month-old daughter whose body was found in a suitcase is renewing his
request for an out-of-county jury.

The Erie Times-News reports defense attorney Jamie Mead is concerned
that local jurors will make up their mind that 21-year-old Tania Coleman
is guilty of homicide and other charges even before her trial begins.

Jury selection is set to begin Monday.

Coleman is also charged with abuse of a corpse, concealing a child's
death, tampering with evidence and child endangerment in the death of
Alayja Coleman. Prosecutors say the girl's mother put the girl's
emaciated corpse in the suitcase which was discovered when it was left
on the curb for trash haulers in May.

The defense denies that the girl was purposely starved.

http://tribune-democrat.com/latestnews/x1511616198/Morning-Briefing-Mother-of-suitcase-baby-wants-jury-change

Tania Coleman Guilty of 1st Degree Murder

After a few hours of deliberation, an Erie County jury has found Tania
Coleman guilty on all charges, including 1st Degree Murder, in
connection with the starvation death of her 14 month old daughter,
Alayja.

The baby's body was discovered decomposing in a suitcase.

The defense argued Coleman couldn't get her baby to eat anything.

We'll have much more on the verdict on Action News beginning at 5pm.

good grief!! sterilize this woman!!! this is animalistic!!

Pa. Mom Convicted in Toddler's Starving Death

ERIE, Pa. March 23, 2012 (AP)

A northwestern Pennsylvania woman will spend the rest of her life in prison for starving her 14-month-old daughter to death and hiding her body in a suitcase that was discovered in a pile of trash on the street.

The jury needed just three hours Thursday to convict Tania Coleman of first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Alayja.

The toddler's decomposing body was found among the trash last May by an Erie firefighter responding to an unrelated call.

The Erie Times-News ( http://bit.ly/GPORK4 ) reports Coleman's attorney vowed an appeal, saying the evidence did not support a first-degree murder conviction.

Prosecutors say Coleman starved her daughter and withheld medical care because she was the "runt" and didn't fit into her family. The defense claimed Alayja had medical problems that kept her from eating.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/pa-mom-convicted-toddlers-starving-death-15985285#.T3ukpNXNKNY

Tania Coleman is led out of a holding cell at
the Erie County Courthouse in Erie Thursday, following her first-degree
murder conviction in the starvation death of her 14-month old toddler,
Alayja Coleman, in May, 2011. The dead baby was found in a suitcase near
Tania Coleman's east Erie home on May 24, 2011. AP Photo/ Erie Times-News.

At least she can't reproduce again.
Age 21 with 3 children a year apart and another one on the way. My money says she was bleeding the welfare system.

Those poor children. Thanks God she will not be raising them, or murdering them.

AMEN!!!

This place is not too far and I have traveled there.
Yet, it could be happening right up the block. It just feels weird knowing this area and what she did. Even animals take care of their young better than this.

An Erie County judge urged Tania Coleman to pray as she serves life in prison for starving her 14-month-old daughter to death.

Alayja Coleman spent the last month of her life wasting away with
none of the care, love and food she needed from her mother, the judge
said.
Coleman did not mourn the child, the judge said. She "placed her in a suitcase to rot."

Erie County Judge Shad Connelly sentenced Coleman on Thursday in Erie
County Court to the mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance
of parole for first-degree murder. He added an additional four to 24
months on a charge of concealing the death of a child. Coleman, Connelly
said, needs to pray for forgiveness "for what was and never should have
been."
Coleman, 21, expressed remorse, but only for the way she and her
then-boyfriend, Xavier Hollamon, hid Alayja's body -- in a suitcase that
was put out with the trash. She continued to maintain, as she did at
trial, that her daughter's death was not intended.

Immediately after the hearing, her court-appointed lawyer, Jamie
Mead, filed motions aiming to set aside Coleman's first-degree murder
conviction, or alternately, win a new trial.
Mead said the jury found Coleman guilty of first-degree murder based on emotion, not facts.

If the judge rejects the claim that there was insufficient evidence
to convict Coleman of first-degree murder, then, Mead said, Coleman is
due a new trial because the verdict was against the weight of the
evidence. He also cited other errors, including the prosecution's
failure to turn over a key report by Dr. Eric Vey, Erie County forensic
pathologist.
Mead is a board member and shareholder of the Times Publishing Company, which publishes the Erie Times-News and GoErie.com

Chief Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz, who prosecuted Coleman
with District Attorney Jack Daneri, said the prosecution plans to
vigorously defend Coleman's conviction.
"We believe it was a fair trial," she said. "A life sentence is appropriate in light of the horrific way the child died."

The case began May 24, when, as Connelly said Thursday, an alert Erie
firefighter responding to a kitchen fire detected "the haunting stench
of death" coming from a suitcase that was lying along the street in the
700 block of East Eighth Street.
After a trial, a jury on March 22, accepted the prosecution's claim
that Coleman deliberately deprived her daughter of food and drink
because Alayja was a "runt" and did not fit into the family she had with
Hollamon, the father of her other children.

The jury rejected evidence noted by the defense that Alayja steadily
lost weight from 6 months of age on and weighed less at 11 months than
she did at 4 months, and also evidence that Coleman had repeatedly
expressed concerns about Alayja's eating habits.
In his motion, Mead challenged the first-degree murder conviction on several fronts.

The prosecution presented no evidence of "premeditation or specific
intent to kill," which are required to prove first-degree murder, Mead
said.
The prosecution claimed in its opening statement that the evidence
would show Coleman killed Alayja because Alayja interfered with
Coleman's plans to be with Hollamon. When Hollamon testified that he
loved Alayja, the prosecution switched tactics, Mead said. Daneri argued
instead that Alayja was killed because she was a "runt" and
inconvenient.

Coleman never used the word "runt" to describe her daughter, Mead noted. That word came from a detective, he said.
"There was absolutely no evidence that Tania Coleman resented the baby because of its size (or any other reason)," Mead wrote.

The prosecution unfairly played on jurors' emotions by displaying
graphic autopsy photographs during Daneri's closing argument and by
painting an inflammatory image of Alayja stranded in a bed, her mother
refusing to hold her, when there was no evidence that ever happened,
Mead said.
Mead said Vey's testimony, especially his opinion that it would take
Alayja 30 days to starve, also undercut the first-degree murder verdict.

Alayja's father, Rahsean Murphy, said he saw Coleman feeding Alayja
as late as March 25, 2011. Coleman estimated Alayja died before April
11, 2011.
The jury also had ample evidence from Vey and Alayja's pediatrician
that Alayja, as the defense maintained, failed to gain the proper amount
of weight throughout her life, Mead said.

Multiple witnesses testified that Coleman had expressed concerns about Alayja not eating, he said.
If Coleman had deliberately killed Alayja, she would have had a better plan as to how to hide the crime, Mead said.

Coleman's actions "were consistent with an unplanned and panicked course of action," he wrote.
Ultimately, Coleman's decision to hide the baby in a garbage can and
lie about the child's whereabouts overshadowed "the real circumstances
behind her death," Mead said.

"The jury overlooked legitimate reasonable doubts and insufficient
evidence of premeditation, motivation and specific intent to kill in
this case. Considering the holes in the Commonwealth's case (including
completely changing its theories from the opening statement to the
closing argument), the fact that the jury was out less than three hours
(including lunch) is shocking," he wrote.http://www.goerie.com/article/20120518/NEWS02/305179897/Coleman-gets-life-plus-immediately-challenges-verdict

I hope the conviction sticks and this POS woman rots in jail the rest of her life. She killed that baby and just threw her away. So tragic.

me too babyj!! i also hope ALL of her other children r removed from her custody and she is never allowed to b in contact with them.

Another POS off the streets and away from our children.