post #1
31 May 2005, 22:28 UTC#1
QUOTE
May 31, 2005
It started with a typical order from a mother to a daughter: Clean up your room.
It ended with anything but a typical outcome, according to Nassau County police: The 12-year-old Freeport girl strangled her 45-year-old mother.
"It's shocking. It's unbelievable that it happened. But it did happen," Det. Sgt. Dennis Barry of the Nassau County Homicide Squad said Monday.
Barry said an argument between the two over cleaning the girl's room started before midnight Saturday and quickly turned violent. "The violence escalated and spiraled out of control," he said, with the girl wrapping her hands around her mother's neck and choking her until she became unconscious.
The girl then called a neighbor who is a nurse to try to resuscitate her mother. The nurse called 911, reporting that the woman was not breathing, and then gave her CPR. Freeport police and an ambulance soon arrived and took her to Nassau University Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 12:43 a.m. Sunday.
Police did not identify the girl or her mother because of the girl's age. She was being held Monday in protective custody at the Nassau County Juvenile Detention Center. Barry said she will be charged and tried as a juvenile delinquent in Family Court . Instead, she would be assigned to some kind of juvenile detention center or juvenile jail.
Barry said the girl and her mother are average heights and weights, describing the girl as under 5-foot-4. "It wasn't like the mother was unusually petite and the daughter was unusually large," he said.
He said that both the police investigation and the medical examiner's autopsy determined that the woman was choked to death. "There was sufficient evidence to charge" the girl, he said.
He added, "This is the kind of case that after hearing the facts one is left with a sense of shock."
While few neighbors on the street where the family lived said they knew them well, they were stunned by the alleged strangulation. "I can't believe something like that would happen," said Danny Vega, 26. "That's crazy."
Another neighbor, Eddie Santos, 24, said he often saw the girl playing with neighborhood kids, running out for the ice cream truck and engaging in other typical children's activities. The mother and other relatives who apparently lived in the house often had barbecues, he said. The girl's father does not live with the mother and daughter, police said.
"It's a big shock because there's never been any problem with cops" at the house, he said. "They're really quiet."
It started with a typical order from a mother to a daughter: Clean up your room.
It ended with anything but a typical outcome, according to Nassau County police: The 12-year-old Freeport girl strangled her 45-year-old mother.
"It's shocking. It's unbelievable that it happened. But it did happen," Det. Sgt. Dennis Barry of the Nassau County Homicide Squad said Monday.
Barry said an argument between the two over cleaning the girl's room started before midnight Saturday and quickly turned violent. "The violence escalated and spiraled out of control," he said, with the girl wrapping her hands around her mother's neck and choking her until she became unconscious.
The girl then called a neighbor who is a nurse to try to resuscitate her mother. The nurse called 911, reporting that the woman was not breathing, and then gave her CPR. Freeport police and an ambulance soon arrived and took her to Nassau University Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 12:43 a.m. Sunday.
Police did not identify the girl or her mother because of the girl's age. She was being held Monday in protective custody at the Nassau County Juvenile Detention Center. Barry said she will be charged and tried as a juvenile delinquent in Family Court . Instead, she would be assigned to some kind of juvenile detention center or juvenile jail.
Barry said the girl and her mother are average heights and weights, describing the girl as under 5-foot-4. "It wasn't like the mother was unusually petite and the daughter was unusually large," he said.
He said that both the police investigation and the medical examiner's autopsy determined that the woman was choked to death. "There was sufficient evidence to charge" the girl, he said.
He added, "This is the kind of case that after hearing the facts one is left with a sense of shock."
While few neighbors on the street where the family lived said they knew them well, they were stunned by the alleged strangulation. "I can't believe something like that would happen," said Danny Vega, 26. "That's crazy."
Another neighbor, Eddie Santos, 24, said he often saw the girl playing with neighborhood kids, running out for the ice cream truck and engaging in other typical children's activities. The mother and other relatives who apparently lived in the house often had barbecues, he said. The girl's father does not live with the mother and daughter, police said.
"It's a big shock because there's never been any problem with cops" at the house, he said. "They're really quiet."
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisla...y-top-headlines