Ariena had been in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend Alonzo Turner, a six foot- two inch, 220 pound man for months. She later explained her reasoning for not leaving, saying that Alonzo threatened to find and kill her and her son if she ever tried to run away.
Most of the account from the day of the incident was given my Ariena's good friend Latricia Chance who was with her on that day. Chance explains how when she first got to Ariena's house, she was greeted with the sight of an obviously troubled Titches sitting barefoot on the doorstep. When she entered the home, she saw the couple sitting inside and noted that something was different between them. Next thing she knew, Alonzo had dragged Titches inside, enraged because the three year old had soiled his pajama pants.
The next part of the account of this is brutal and down right heartbreaking so if you don't want to read about the awful murder of a three year old boy, then look for the ---> at the beginning of the paragraph to skip it.
Alonzo ordered the boy to bend over and touch his toes and whipped him with a leather belt before throwing him into a wall. Titches hit his head hard enough to spit up some of his half eaten cereal. Alonzo then went on to take the mess and smother it into the boy's face. By this point, Titches is on his back crying in the mess and Alonzo takes the opportunity to stomp on the boy's chest. He next drags Titches into the bathroom, forces his head into the toilet and flushes.
This is the point where Ariena says to her friend that if she even attempted to take Titches out of the house then Alonzo would kill them. She also explained that Alonzo told her that she couldn't tell him what not to do to the boy because it was her child and not his. Even so, Ariena made an attempt to save her son despite her terror which Chance said was clearly visible on her face. She made a break for Titches and raced for the front door.
The next part of this record makes me want to throw up, simply from imagining the terror felt by Ariena and Latricia at this moment. Ariena failed to make it out of the front door with her son. Alonzo grabbed Titches right as they made it out of the door and shut and locked it on the Ariena and Latricia. Leaving him and Titches alone inside. The pair went from payphones to homes in order to call police and find anyone that could help them. They next went to another friends house where Ariena called Alonzo to ask where her child was. He told her that he was taking Titches to the hospital but Latricia says that, "He was just playing with her." He had no intentions of taking the boy to the hospital. They went to another close friend's house where they decided to all go back to the house to find Alonzo and Titches. After some distracting on Alonzo's part Latricia took her friend back to the house and dropped her off.
Later on that night, she would receive a call informing her of the death of Titches.
-----> Throughout the account, it seems that Ariena was so frightened of Alonzo that she believed anything he said purely out of fear. Turner was arrested for the murder of Titches and assault against Ariena. However, Ariena was also arrested and labeled as a criminal. Her official charge being,
Her sentence, 45 years.
Here is the real shocker in this story. Most of the united states allow the mother (who is also abused,) of a murdered or abused child to be prosecuted as a perpetrator. Not for the abuse of the child, but for failing to protect her child from the violent partner. Stephanie Avalon, resource specialist for the federally funded Battered Women's Justice Project, said that, “It’s the ultimate blaming of the victim.”
Over the past decade, 28 mothers were imprisoned in 11 different states for failing to protect their child from and abusive partner. Out of these 28, 13 mothers were given sentences of 20 years or more. One mother even received a life sentence after the death of her child. In many cases the mother get a longer sentence than the person that actually injured the child. One notable case being the instance where a man got two years for fracturing a infant girls toe, femur, and several ribs. The mother however for failure to intervene, received 30 years in prison.
Turner had a track record for being an abusive partner. He broke into the homes of partners and dragged them outside. In one instance he threatened an onlooker who was pleading with him to let her go. He refused to let her go and threatened to kill her. This is when the onlooker pulled out a revolver and shot at the ground in a warning. Still Turner refused to back down. Not wanting to shoot the man, the onlooker instead opted to stab him in the leg with a knife. It was only then that he ran.
The fact that a mother can be convicted for a murder she did not commit is outrageous. Especially when the person murdered was the person they brought into the world and lovingly cared for until the moment of their death. Even if a mother failed to step in to help the child, how could anyone deem giving her a much longer sentence than the person that actually committed the crime.
The world is a truly messed up place.
Original Court documents used to write about the incident.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1277580-lindley-sentencing-transcript.html#document/p80/a176244
http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexcampbell/how-the-law-turns-battered-women-into-criminals#3klxw19
This is frightening and terrible. I cannot believe what this world has come too. I feel bad for titches and i cant even begin to put into words how he must of felt. I hope that the police can continue on putting bad people into jail and to make this world a bit safer for victims in dangerous incidents like this.
ReplyDelete-sarah oviedo 6th
Wow this is terrifying. I could not imagine being in this situation. I agree with Sarah I can't even imagine what the little boy went through.
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