RAZIAH BATES - 11 Months - Stockton CA

A mother was arrested on Christmas Day in connection with the murder of her 11-month-old baby.

Stockton Police arrested 19-year-old Bianca Armstead of Stockton, on
Christmas Day after her 11- month-old-old daughter, Raziah Bates died at
the hospital.

The baby was brought into the hospital on Christmas Eve for treatment.
The hospital staff noticed injuries consistent with signs of child abuse
and notified police. Raziah died on Christmas Day.

Armstead is facing felony charges of murder, torture and child abuse.
Two other children that were found in the home where Armstead resides
were taken into child protective custody. It is not known how the
children are related to the suspect.

A 19-year-old Stockton woman was in custody
Friday on suspicion of murder after her 11-month-old daughter died on
Christmas, police said.
Police said the baby, Raziah Bates, was brought to a hospital on Christmas Eve, said Officer
Pete Smith, a Stockton police spokesman.
Medical workers called police when they suspected child abuse, Smith said, and Raziah died within 24 hours.



Her mother, Bianca Armstead, was first arrested
and booked into San Joaquin County jail on suspicion of child abuse,
Smith said, but the murder charge was added after an autopsy.
Armstead also was booked on suspicion of torture, according to online jail records.
She was being held Friday without bail.
Two other children from Armstead's home were taken into protective custody,
Smith said, but he was not sure of their relationship to the woman.
Bates' death was Stockton's 49th homicide of 2010, Smith said.

Did the system fail Raziah?

On Dec. 10, a San Joaquin County social worker
visited Bianca Armstead, 19, and her daughter, Raziah Bates, not quite
11 months old.
Someone had called the county's child-protection office a week earlier with concerns about the baby.
To
the social worker who came to check on her, Raziah "appeared healthy
and happy," according to a heavily redacted report provided to The
Record in response to a Public Records Act request.






She sat in her mother's arms. She played with her aunt and her cousins, who also were in the room.
Armstead
said "there was nothing currently wrong with the minor," the social
worker would later write. "The minor did not cry or cringe when
touched."
Still, the report indicates that
before leaving, the social worker told Armstead that Raziah needed
medical attention, that she would check in with the family again, and
that if Raziah hadn't been seen by a doctor, the girl would be taken
away.
No one from the child protection office saw Raziah after that.
Two weeks later - on Christmas Day - she died. Her mother is facing torture and murder charges.
An overtaxed Child Protective Services system might have failed her, too.
Qua'Tisha Cummings, Armstead's sister, was there when the social worker came to see her niece.
Three days after the baby's death, and in the midst of planning a funeral, she called child protection authorities:
She
"was very upset, indicating the CPS social worker told her sister,
(Raziah's) mother, that she was going to check to be sure medical
treatment had been sought and that if it had not, she would be back to
remove the baby," according to the report.
"She feels that if the social worker had checked as promised, the baby would have been removed and still alive today."
Documents
obtained by The Record from a source within the county Human Services
Agency - which oversees child protection - show that the social worker
assigned to Raziah Bates also was responsible for investigating at least
30 other reports of abuse or neglect.
More:
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110220/A_NEWS/102200309/-1/a_news14

Tot's injuries called "overkill"
December 16, 2011 12:00 AM
STOCKTON - Multiple injuries - brain trauma,
organ infections, broken bones and various other injuries - were the
causes of death for an 11-month-old girl named Raziah Bates.
The abuse she endured, said San Joaquin County Chief Medical Examiner Bennet Omalu, was "what we call overkill."






Omalu's
testimony Thursday was compelling enough to send the baby's mother,
20-year-old Bianca Armstead, to trial on charges of murder, torture and
multiple counts of child abuse, said San Joaquin County Deputy District
Attorney Angela Hayes.Autopsy reports indicate she died of adult-induced non-accidental trauma.
"She
was the sole caretaker," said Hayes, adding that evidence indicates
there were few times when someone else saw the toddler in the weeks
leading to her death.
"Obviously, if someone had witnessed this, they would have stopped it," Hayes said.
Armstead had been reported by her sister to Child Protective Services weeks before Raziah died from her injuries.
But when the social worker found insufficient evidence, the case was not followed up.
Baby Raziah was taken to a hospital on Christmas Eve and died within 24 hours, police have said.
Armstead was booked into San Joaquin County Jail the next day after hospital doctors reported their suspicions to authorities.
Omalu presented his autopsy findings of dark neglect and violence at a preliminary hearing.
He said the child appeared malnourished and had a battered face with bite marks, abrasions and contusions.
But those wounds were relatively minimal compared with internal bodily injuries suffered by Raziah.
She
endured blunt force trauma to her head, according to testimony, which
caused it to swell, and to the trunk of her body, which caused organ
damage and internal bacteria infections.
Her fingers had been smashed, and marks on her neck tissue indicated she had been choked at one point.
Among other wounds, she had broken bones that were healing incorrectly.
Some of the abuse to Raziah had occurred weeks before her death; scarring had started to form in certain areas.
"This
is a very, very, very painful experience," Omalu said. "This child was
in an extreme level of conscious suffering, ... if I can use the word
torture."
Some of the abuse had taken place within 24 hours of the time she was taken to the hospital.
Hayes said Armstead drew pleasure from hurting her daughter.
Yet the absence of witnesses was a key point during cross-examination.
Susan
Dondershine, a private defense attorney from Palo Alto, said Armstead
couldn't be identified as the perpetrator for certain, nor was there
evidence to connect the perpetrator's state of mind to sadistic
tendencies.
Neverthless, San Joaquin County
Superior Court Judge George Abdallah found there was sufficient evidence
to move forward with charges.
A trial for Armstead, who faces 25 years to life in prison, begins March 22.
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111216/A_NEWS02/112160319

I don't believe this trial started March 22, 2012 as stated in previous post as I am unable to find anything more recent than Dec. 16, 2011.