GUILTY Canada - Marissa Whalen, 2, Fort Erie, Ont, 29 July 2011

[matou]

While the Crown's case does not allege Whalen beat her child, he said her conduct before, during and after the killing amounted to culpable homicide.

"Roseanne Whalen's actions, omissions and negligence caused the death of Marissa Whalen just as surely as if she'd beaten the child to death herself," he said.

The jury heard about a litany of abuse the child suffered, including bruises and untreated broken bones.

The couple had been in a relationship for two years, off and on, Hill testified. Whalen and her daughter moved into apartment Hill shared with her two children just two months before Marissa's death. Marissa slept on the floor in one of the children's bedrooms.

Hill was asked what Marissa's demeanour was in those two months.

"She was scared. Malnourished. Abused," Hill testified. "She was hit, slapped, punched, made to stand against the wall, force fed."

"Was Roseanne Whalen present all of the time or some of the time?" the Crown asked.

"Always," Hill answered.

How frequent was the slapping and hitting by you, the Crown asked.

"Daily."

"Where was Roseanne Whalen?"

"Right beside me."

"What did Roseanne Whalen do?"

"Nothing."

Hill testified the little girl was unwanted by both of them and was the subject of arguments between them.

"I didn't want the burden of another child when I could barely take care of my own," Hill testified.

She said Whalen didn't want to give Marissa up because the child was her source of income, due to government cheques.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/03/1...-details-of-toddlers-beatings-mother-on-trial

 

[matou]

Rainbow Hill, her tormentor and mother Roseanne Whalen’s lover, had decided to give her a bath.

Hill and Whalen were in the middle of yet another argument. As the couple bickered, Hill claims she went into the bathroom and reached out to turn on the water.

“I dropped Marissa face down into the bathtub,” Hill testified Tuesday in Superior court, as Whalen, who has pled not guilty to a charge of second-degree murder, wept from the prisoner’s box.

“When I went to pick her up, her eyes were rolling into the back of her head.”

It was July 29, 2011, two days after Marissa’s second birthday. Hill said she carried the dead or dying girl out of the bathroom. “She was limp,” Hill said.

“I believe she was unconscious.”

I dropped her on her face? Really? More like slammed her down onto the bathtub. Even now she is minimizing the horror. There was a loud noise coming from the bathroom, that's not the sound of dropping a toddler. Liar. AND she may not have even been dead. SICK .

http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/2014/03/18/i-dropped-marissa-face-down

 

[matou]

But before they even knew for sure that the toddler was dead, a call to 911 to come to their Fort Erie, Ont., home was cancelled.

"You knew she was dead?" Whalen's lawyer Geoffrey Hadfield asked Hill in the second-degree murder trial of Roseanne Whalen on Wednesday.

"I don't know," answered Hill, the Crown's first witness.

"It's possible the child was alive?" the lawyer asked.

"Anything's possible," Hill said. "We both believed she had passed."

The pair, with the help of Hill's sister, drove the body to a remote location that same night to bury her.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/03/1...itness-tells-murder-trail-in-death-of-toddler

 

[matou]

She wore a wire and said this????? WTF?

Three months later Roseanne Whalen went to police, and then wore a wire to meet Rainbow Hill, while police watched.

Just tell me the truth. I just want my baby, I don’t know how to explain I’m sorry for real. I have to deal with people still asking for her.

http://www.chch.com/rainbow-hill-testifies-whalens-trial/

 

[matou]

Lots more info at the video about the wire, Roseanne crying, disturbing info about turning away the paramedics. sigh.

http://www.chch.com/rainbow-hill-testifies-whalens-trial/

 

[matou]

They excavated the ground by hand, but it wasn’t until the afternoon of Oct. 16, 2011 that they found Marissa’s remains. Rogers said they had exhausted techniques and used an excavator to remove top layers of soil.

On the machine’s third pass over the grave, police detected the strong odour of decomposition and knew they had the right spot.

The remains were encapsulated in clay and at the advice of an anthropologist, police dug underneath the body. Rogers said a piece of black garbage bag was still affixed to the face and had been ripped.

During an autopsy in Toronto on Oct. 18, it was discovered bones were missing. Police returned to the scene to continue excavating. They found an additional six bones.

Jurors were shown photographs of the wooded area, burial site and recovered bones on Thursday.

Whalen, in the prisoner’s box, began to cry loudly and hid her face when a photo was shown of Marissa’s bones laid out on a table.

She opened up her daughter's grave to remove the blanket and reburied her own baby daughter. And she cries loudly when she sees her bones? WTF?????

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/...ave?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[matou]

Hadfield suggested Whalen was trying to protect her baby the morning of her death and Hill hit her.

“You’re wrong, and you have no proof of that and that didn’t happen,” Hill said.

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/...ave?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[greenthumb]

Matou, thank you for faithfully posting articles about this trial. I struggle with reading them, because the brutality and inhumanity sickens me, as I'm sure it does you. It is simply horrifying what was done to this poor child. Marissa must not have felt loved, protected or safe for even one day, not even for one moment, in her short life. Such cruelty, to an innocent child, is beyond comprehension. I'm praying for a guilty verdict.

 

[matou]

Matou, thank you for faithfully posting articles about this trial. I struggle with reading them, because the brutality and inhumanity sickens me, as I'm sure it does you. It is simply horrifying what was done to this poor child. Marissa must not have felt loved, protected or safe for even one day, not even for one moment, in her short life. Such cruelty, to an innocent child, is beyond comprehension. I'm praying for a guilty verdict.

I know. It's disgusting. She did what she did and needs to pay. How can she cry at seeing the bones and not when she unburies her own baby's body to remove the blanket to burn it???? There is so much anger about this from me. How could she? For what? She deserves a life in the prison of Hell. Did she ever love Marissa? So sad, why not pass over her daughter to other family members to help? I'll never understand.

 

[matou]

FACS had 37 contacts with Marissa's mother

That contact ended 10 months before Marissa died when it was determined that RW was doing a good enough job. They had concerns over her relationship with Rainbow Hill, though. I guess once she knew FACS was out of the picture, she asked Hill to get back with her. The horror continues.....

http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/2014/03/21/facs-had-37-contacts-with-marissas-mother

 

[matou]

Montgomery testified Friday in the John Sopinka Courthouse in Hamilton that she became involved with the Whalen file when Marissa was a little over two months old. She said FACS opened a file after an anonymous complainant made allegations about Whalen’s fitness as a mother.

Montgomery met with Whalen for the first time Oct. 8, 2009 at the home she shared with Hill on McCrae St. in Niagara Falls. They would meet again and talk on the phone in November.

http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/2014/03/21/facs-had-37-contacts-with-marissas-mother

 

[voominvava]

http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/2014/03/21/facs-had-37-contacts-with-marissas-mother

This case is heart wrenching. This beautiful little girl didn't know anything but pain and abuse from day one.

... and I think everyone who knew about the abuse played a role in her death... disgusting.

 

[matou]

The six-year-old boy is reluctant to talk about Marissa Whalen, the toddler who lived in his Fort Erie house for a time. He’s been told not to say anything.

“She was nice. I can’t talk about the rest,” he says, his feet dangling off a loveseat in a video taken at Niagara Regional Police headquarters on Oct. 13, 2011.

Rainbow Hill’s son, whose name is under publication ban, tells the police detective his mom told him not to talk about Marissa.

Why did your mom say that? the police officer asks him.

“Because it is dangerous,” the boy answers.

Poor little boy.

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2014/03/25/killers-son-testifies-in-marissa-trial

 

[matou]

Listen as 911 call request for assistance is cancelled.....sad. Link to actual 911 call.

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2014/03/25/killers-son-testifies-in-marissa-trial

 

[matou]

Hill’s stepfather Patrick McKay had already made a 911 call for help, but testified he cancelled the ambulance at Hill’s request, not knowing if the toddler was alive or dead.

Niagara Emergency Medical Services paramedics and Niagara Regional Police responded anyway, but McKay and Hill lied, telling them Hill’s son had been choking on toast or cereal and it had cleared.

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2014/03/25/killers-son-testifies-in-marissa-trial

 

[matou]

Hill has testified while paramedics and police were inside the house, Marissa was hidden in the basement and Whalen was hiding in an upstairs bathroom.

She couldn't even be with her baby daughter, she hid her in a different room too? WTF is wrong with this lady? If she was truly upset about it she would have been crying and hysterical.

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2014/03/25/killers-son-testifies-in-marissa-trial

 

[matou]

Sorry, I need to see this through until the end. Graphic information.

The boy says there were hand prints on Marissa from his mother, because she beat Marissa and that’s how she died.

“She beated her?” Beaulieu asks.

“Every day,” the boy says.

He said his mom used her hands or a belt to beat Marissa. He said it made him feel bad, because his mom fed Marissa until she “puked.” “When I saw her puke out, it made me almost puke out,” he said, telling Beaulieu he would go upstairs to eat so he wouldn’t smell anything.

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2014/03/25/killers-son-testifies-in-marissa-trial

 

[matou]

He told assistant Crown attorney Pat Vadacchino that he told the truth in the interview, but only half the truth. “There’s a bunch of things I didn’t say,” he told her.

“Rainbow was telling me not to.”

What else did she do to her????

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2014/03/25/killers-son-testifies-in-marissa-trial

 

[voominvava]

He told assistant Crown attorney Pat Vadacchino that he told the truth in the interview, but only half the truth. “There’s a bunch of things I didn’t say,” he told her.

“Rainbow was telling me not to.”

What else did she do to her????

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2014/03/25/killers-son-testifies-in-marissa-trial

:banghead: horrendous. :grouphug:

 

[matou]

McKay testified he lived in the upper apartment at 271 Emerick Ave. in July 2011 while Hill, her two children ages six and 10, Whalen and Marissa lived in the lower apartment.

On the morning of Marissa’s death, he’d slept for a few hours after working a late shift when he woke up and heard Hill calling “Dad! Dad!”

He said he ran downstairs to the apartment below and saw the baby on the living room floor, motionless. He said Hill and Whalen were standing near her.

“Rainbow Hill was saying ‘Help me Dad, help me.’ Roseanne Whalen wasn’t really saying anything, just screaming, not saying anything.”

McKay said he ran back up to his apartment to retrieve his cellphone to call 911. He testified Hill told him not to call, but he had already dialled the number. He gave the dispatcher his address, but then cancelled the call.

Niagara Emergency Medical Services responded anyway.

McKay told the court Hill told him to tell paramedics her son was choking on a piece of toast and it had cleared, which is what he did. Paramedics came inside the home to check on the boy.

McKay said he didn’t know where Whalen or Marissa were while paramedics were in the house.

After they left, McKay told Hill he was taking her kids to his wife’s house. “I wanted to take them out of any possible situation they may see or hear,” he testified.

In cross-examination Monday, McKay told Whalen’s lawyer Geoffrey Hadfield he had no concerns about the welfare of the children in the house prior to that day.

McKay said he heard “loud discussions” in the month of July, but no children yelling or screaming and agreed everything appeared normal.

How this person was not charged is so disturbing to me. He KNEW Marissa was dead. Come on. They HID her in the basement. He DID NOT see Marissa ever again after that. JMO

http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/2014/03/24/paramedics-never-got-to-see-slain-toddler