AP Features, November 17th, 2007
Some recent fatal child-abuse cases in which the convicted or alleged perpetrator was the unmarried companion of the slain child's mother:
_Jose Calderon, 20, was sentenced Nov. 1 to up to 15 years in prison for the death of 4-year-old Quachaun Brown in New York City. Prosecutors said Calderon beat the boy several times with his fists, a belt, a plastic bat, and struck the child's head against a wall in their Bronx apartment in January 2006. The mother, Aleisha Smith, pleaded guilty earlier to second-degree manslaughter for failing to get her son to a hospital promptly.
_Phillip Guymon, 30, of Murray, Utah, was sentenced in October to five years in prison after admitting he threw his girlfriend's 2-year-old son, Jayden Cangro, across a room last year, killing the child. Guymon initially told police the child had fallen out of bed and later said the boy fell down stairs. He eventually acknowledged he had become frustrated and threw the boy when he wouldn't go to bed.
_Samuel Corona, 34, was arrested on a murder charge in September in connection with the fatal beating of 6-year-old Oscar Jimenez Jr. in San Jose, Calif., in February. Police say Corona and the boy's mother then took the body to Phoenix, where authorities later discovered it buried beneath concrete bags and soil. The mother, Kathryn Jimenez, who says she was often abused by Corona, has pleaded guilty to lesser charges for her role as an accessory.
_Donell Parker, 23, has been charged with murder in the April death of 4-year-old Cameron Smith, who allegedly was punched and whipped with a belt over the course of two days in suburban Chicago. The boy's mother, Lavada Smith, had left her three children with Parker while she was being deployed to Iraq with the Army National Guard.
_Derek Chappell, 25, was sentenced to death this month for the 2004 drowning of 2-year-old Devon Shackleford in Mesa, Ariz. Prosecutors said Chappell committed the murder in an apartment complex swimming pool because he considered Devon an obstacle to his relationship with the boy's mother.
_Rene Barrios, 26, faces a first-degree murder charge in the Oct. 26 death of a 2-week-old boy, Jaden Encinas, in Tucson, Ariz. Police said the baby appeared to have died from blunt-force trauma.
_Kerry Joe Smith, 21, of Oklahoma City, has been charged with sexually abusing and murdering Olivia Scroggins, who died in August a few weeks before her second birthday. Her mother, Wendy Scroggins, 22, has been charged with permitting child abuse.
_Alvaro Andres Ramos-Cardenas, 24, faces a murder charge in the July death of 13-month-old Peter Blanco in Tucson, Ariz. Police say the baby was abused after being left by his mother in the care of Ramos-Cardenas.
_Traveles Bullard, 21, of Pine Bluff, Ark., faces a murder charge in the July death of 9-month-old Jermauri Craig, whose body was found at a motel where Bullard was caring for him while the mother was at work. Police said Jermauri suffered a skull fracture, bruising around both eyes and bite marks to the side of the face and arm.
_Paul Tejada-Jimenez, 30, of New York City, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in October in the July 2006 death of 2-year-old Sharllene Marillo. She died of blunt force trauma to the head; Tejada-Jimenez told police she fell to the floor as he was shaking her. The city's child protection service had received warnings six weeks earlier that Sharllene was being abused.
_Raul Arteaga, 33, of Milwaukee, has been charged with first-degree reckless homicide in the suffocation of 19-month-old Alicia Burgess in May. Police said Arteaga told them he was on a crack-cocaine binge at the time and wanted Alicia to stop crying. Alicia and her brother had remained at the home despite several warnings to child-welfare workers of abuse.
_Johnny Carvajal, 48, is charged with endangering the welfare of a child and narcotics offenses in connection with the death of 2-year-old Sherlyn Polonia in New York in 2006. A stash of drugs was found in the Bronx apartment, and an autopsy determined the girl died of heroin intoxication.
