AVAYHA MARTIN - 16 months (5/2014)/ Charged: Father; Anthony Martin - Kissimmee FL

Kissimmee man charged with murder in death of 16-month-old daughter
Anthony Martin, 24, was booked into the Osceola County Jail without bail, records show.

By Henry Pierson Curtis, Orlando Sentinel
12:34 p.m. EDT, June 13, 2014

A Kissimmee man was arrested late Thursday on first-degree murder and child-abuse charges in the death last month of his 16-month-old daughter, according to police.

Anthony Martin, 24, who cooperated with police, was booked into the Osceola County Jail without bail, records show.

His daughter, Avayha, died shortly after dawn May 23 at Florida Hospital in Kissimmee. Her injuries likely were suffered more than 12 hours earlier but Martin told police he noticed nothing unusual when she slept through the night on his chest, records state.

The toddler's obvious injuries included a large bruise on her forehead, a cut above her right eye, deep abrasions on her nose, dried blood around her mouth, bruises on both sides of her chest and what looked like cuts along the rib cage.

An autopsy conducted the same day in Orlando by Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Gary Utz found swelling and bleeding in the brain and the eyes as well as internal injuries, including a lacerated liver, according to the arrest affidavit.

"I asked Dr. Utz what could have caused all the injuries we were looking at – at which point he acted out picking up Avahya's body from behind and slamming her head into a hard surface," Detective Jean-Paul Antepara wrote.

Two women living with Martin at his Tarpon Street home later told police they remembered him taking Avayha into his bedroom for a nap at 2 p.m. the previous day when they heard a sound that was "not a normal scream." It was so loud they heard it from opposite ends of the house, the affidavit stated.

Martin didn't open the door to his bedroom, but told the women everything was OK and to go away. At 6:30 p.m., one of the women tried to feed Avayha and noticed she was neither playful or hungry — both out-of-character behaviors — and her eyes appeared sunken.

Martin dismissed her concern, saying the child was tired, according to the affidavit.

Convicted three times with dealing cocaine and acquitted twice, Martin told police he spent much of the night coming and going from the Tarpon Street house until about 2 a.m. when he fell asleep with Avahya.

A rag with Avayha's blood was found on the bed where Martin had slept with her.

When questioned, he told police nothing appeared unusual until he awoke that morning and found her "cold to the touch and 'limp,'" the affidavit stated.

"At times Anthony sounded as though he was crying, and would wipe his face, as though to wipe tears from his face," Antepara wrote. "While speaking to Anthony, I sat on a chair less than two feet from him, and could clearly see there were no tears on his face to wipe."

Takita Tillman, the child's mother, told police she had left Avayha in Martin's care for two days.

A student who recently turned 18, she shared Avayha's care with him while she finished high school.

"Takita repeatedly expressed disbelief, and asked me more than once if I was sure her baby was gone," Antepara wrote of the moments before she viewed the body. "As Takita approached Avahya, she started to cry. She looked up, not directly at anyone, and asked, 'What happened to her face?'" As she asked that, Anthony looked down, away from Avahya, and didn't respond. Anthony also made no comments on about the clearly visible facial injuries."

The Tarpon Street house is in the same north Kissimmee where Martin's younger brother, Antwan, 18, was killed in 2010 in an unsolved homicide.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-chilld-abuse-death-kissimmee-20140613,0,2256917.story