ZOEY SANDERCOX - 3 yo (2009) - Troy NY

A city man has been indicted in the killing of his girlfriend's daughter in June.A three-count indictment was handed up earlier this week charging John
A. Tinkler, 27, with second-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter
and endangering the welfare of a child.Tinkler told police in a statement that Zoe Sandercox, 3, hit her head
in the bathtub at their 314 4th St. home while he was in the living
room watching a nature show on the Discovery Channel. A
coroner's report filed in court however states the child's injuries
were inconsistent with a fall in a tub and ruled the girl died from
internal injuries caused by either being kicked or punched in the
abdomen. In his statement, Tinkler said the child's mother,
Gloria Sandercox, had gone to work and he was watching Zoe and her four
siblings. The children were playing outside. ''Zoe started getting whiny and I asked her if she wanted to take a nap,'' Tinkler told police. He later checked on her and found she had vomited the macaroni and cheese he had fed the children for lunch. Tinkler said he then took the child in for a bath and left her there
while he watched a special on cheetahs on the Discovery Channel. Police said Troy paramedics were called to the girl's home just before 5 p.m. to care for a child who was not breathing. After paramedics rushed the girl into an ambulance, Tinkler said, he
called the girl's mother and told her to meet him at the hospital. ''Gloria was outside the ambulance entrance and she was crying. Gloria
said Zoe was dead. I don't think I should have left her alone in the
shower. If I was there I could have caught her,'' Tinkler wrote in his
statement. He was arraigned and pleaded not guilty Tuesday. He is in the Rensselaer County Jail without bail.

A city man, indicted a week ago on murder charges in the killing of his girlfriend's daughter, was denied bail this morning.John A. Tinkler, 27, appeared before Judge Andrew Ceresia. His lawyer,
Sanford Finkel, argued that Tinkler only has two previous unrelated
harassment charges against him and is a longtime resident of Troy. ''He is charged with a reckless act with no intent and John is not a danger to society,'' Finkel said.Assistant District Attorney Christa Book countered that Zoe Sandercox,
3, died from internal bleeding from blunt force trauma to the abdominal
area and asked Ceresia to hold Tinkler without bail. Ceresia agreed. Tinkler is charged with second-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter and child endangerment.Tinkler
told police in a statement that the toddler hit her head in the bathtub
at their 314 Fourth St. home while he was in the living room watching a
nature show on the Discovery Channel.But a coroner's report
filed in court states the child's injuries were inconsistent with a
fall in a tub and ruled the girl died from internal injuries caused by
either being kicked or punched in the abdomen. In his statement,
Tinkler said the child's mother, Gloria Sandercox, had gone to work and
he was watching Zoe and her four siblings. The children were playing
outside.''Zoe started getting whiny and I asked her if she wanted to take a nap,'' Tinkler told police.He said he later checked on her and found she had vomited the macaroni and cheese he had fed the children for lunch.Tinkler said he then bathed the child and left her in the tub while he watched a special on cheetahs on the Discovery Channel.Police
said Troy paramedics were called to the girl's home just before 5 p.m.
to care for a child who was not breathing. She died shortly after
arriving at the hospital, police said.

The injuries that killed 3-year-old Zoey Sandercox a year ago could have
been no accident in the course of childhood play, the doctor who
performed the toddler’s autopsy testified Thursday.
Only another child bent on causing serious harm or death could have inflicted the
internal injures that led to the girl’s death on June 6, 2009, medical
examiner Michael Sikirica testified.
He told a Rensselaer County jury that, in addition to a slew of fresh bruises, he discovered some
400 milliliters of blood pooled in her abdominal cavity as a result of torn tissue.
Sikirica, who ruled the girl’s death a homicide
caused by blunt force trauma, said a girl her age generally has between
1,000 and 1,500 milliliters of blood in her entire body.
John A. Tinkler, 28, faces a second-degree murder charge for the death of his
former girlfriend’s daughter.
His attorney Sanford Finkel intends
to call an expert to testify the girl could have sustained her injuries
during rough-and-tumble play or a fight with one of her four siblings.
Under questioning from Assistant District Attorney Christa Book, Sikirica
said her injuries were not consistent with that scenario.
“What’s it consistent with?” Book asked.
“Child abuse,” the doctor responded.
Zoey likely died within a half-hour of the tearing of
her mesentery, which connects the intestines to the abdominal wall,
Sikirica testified. She would have been in visible pain during that time
and eventually would have passed out, he said.
With no eyewitness testimony that Tinkler ever struck Zoey or any of the
children, Book and Assistant District Attorney Jessica Hall are
presenting a largely circumstantial case suggesting that the defendant
is the only one who could have caused the girl’s injuries. He was
watching the children in the Little Italy apartment where they resided
while the children’s mother, Gloria Sandercox, worked.
Two of the children testified Zoey was fine around 3 p.m. Paramedics responding to
a 4:49 p.m. 911 call performed their duties but said the girl appeared
dead upon their arrival.
Tinkler told police she was ill and fell and hit her head in the shower, later becoming pale and eventually
stopping breathing. But responding officers have testified they found
that story suspect from the beginning and impossible to corroborate.
Among other inconsistencies, the girl’s hair was mostly dry, as was the
towel Tinkler said he used to dry her, they testified. Doctors found no
bump on the back of her head to match the one Tinkler said he felt.
The defendant showed “no emotion” after the girl’s death, Troy Police
Officer Michael Johnson said.
“How would you know how he should
have reacted?” Finkel asked him during cross-examination. “You don’t
know how he reacts to a tragedy.”
On Thursday, the third day of
presenting their case, prosecutors suggested a history of abuse on the
part of the defendant dating back six months.
eri Marble, Gloria Sandercox’s mother, testified that all five of her daughter’s children
stayed at her home for a night in early January of 2009. She said she
found purple bruising on the girl’s back stretching several inches in
all directions and would have taken her to her doctor were the office
open that day.
The bruise was still visible when she took the children again two weeks later, she testified.
“Did you ask Zoey about the bruises?” Book asked.
“I tried, and Zoey wouldn’t answer,” Marble responded, adding later that she found the girl’s
silence unusual.
Finkel noted that Gloria Sandercox previously
testified that both Zoey and Tinkler told her that bruise was sustained
when Zoey fell from the top of a bunk bed. Marble told the attorney she
didn’t buy that story.
“I had five children, and I never saw any of my children with bruises like that,” she testified.
Mallory Gage, a DNA analyst from the State Police crime lab, testified that a
possible bite mark found on Zoey’s abdomen during the autopsy bears DNA
that may be Tinkler’s. Gage could say only that DNA taken from Tinkler’s
toothbrush “cannot be excluded” from the sample Sikirica took from the girl’s body.
“But he cannot be positively included, can he?” Finkel asked the analyst.
While Gage detailed numerous similarities in the DNA strands to jurors, she said such an equivocal
conclusion could not be reached.
The prosecution has two witnesses remaining to testify — both doctors who are unavailable until
Monday, when the trial will resume at 10 a.m.
Judge Andrew Ceresia said he expects the jury to have the case by mid- to late-next week.

The physician who pronounced 3-year-old Zoey Sandercox dead after she
was brought to the hospital with injuries allegedly inflicted by her
mother's boyfriend rebutted the suspect's assertion the child died from a
head injury after a fall in the bathtub.
"When you examined the little girl did you find any head injuries?"
Assistant District Attorney Jessica Hall asked Dr. John Braaten at John
Tinkler's murder trial."No," Braaten told jurors Monday."Were
there any injuries consistent with a fall in the tub?" Hall asked."Nothing
specific," he answered. "The injuries were consistent with child
abuse."Prosecutors contend the little girl died from a blow to
the abdomen that caused internal bleeding. Tinkler told police she
became ill after falling in the tub and hitting her head.Tinkler
is on trial before Rensselaer County Judge Andrew Ceresia. He is charged
with second-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter and child
endangerment for allegedly killing the girl while he watched her on June
6, 2009. Hall wrapped up her case after medical testimony
Monday. Defense attorney Sanford Finkel will begin presenting his case
today.Tinkler is not Zoey's father, but stayed at her home on
June 6, 2009, to take care of his own children and those of his
girlfriend. While he was watching her, the girl was injured and rushed
to the hospital.Jurors on Monday were told Zoey Sandercox's fatal
injuries were the result of child abuse and that Tinkler's statements
to police did not make sense.A second medical expert told jurors
the girl's injuries could not have come from playing or been inflicted
by another child.Previous testimony showed that Zoey and her
siblings, who were ages 5 and 11, played in the backyard of the couple's
Fourth Street home that day.Finkel intends to put his own expert
on the stand who will explain that the injuries could have been caused
by rough play in the backyard of the Fourth Street home or from a blow
by another child.

A jury on Thursday found John Tinkler guilty of second-degree
manslaughter and endangering a child but not guilty of second-degree
murder in the death of his former girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter last year.
Tinkler, 28, sat at attention, looking straight ahead for most of the
nine-day trial. As the guilty verdicts were read, he dropped his head,
tears welling up in his eyes. He faces a term of 5 to 15 years in prison
when he is sentenced July 15. His attorney Sanford Finkel said later
that it was a partial victory his client was cleared of murder, which
could have put him in prison for 25 years to life. ''This is a
victory to some extent but he still has to spend time in prison for
something he may not have done,'' Finkel said. Assistant District
Attorney Crista Book praised jurors, who took 13 hours to deliberate
mostly circumstantial evidence they heard during the nine-day trial.
''Second-degree murder has a difficult burden of proof but they
believed that John recklessly caused her death,'' said Book, who
prosecuted the case with fellow Assistant District Attorney Jessica
Hall. Tinkler lived with his girlfriend and her five children,
one of which was also his child, in a Fourth Street apartment. He was
watching the kids alone June 6, 2009, when he called 911 saying Zoey
Sandercox was unresponsive. Just after arriving at Samaritan Hospital,
she died from internal bleeding caused by repeated sharp blows to her
abdominal area. Prosecutors put three of Zoey's siblings on the
stand but had no direct evidence Tinkler ever harmed the girl. The case
was based on evidence that showed that because of the severity of the
injuries and the short time it took the girl to die, Tinkler was the
only person who could have harmed her. Their children's mother, Gloria
Sandercox, was at work that day. The jury began deliberating
about 4 p.m. Wednesday and retired after seven hours.
They returned the verdict about 4 p.m. Thursday.