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shy
Crypt Keeper
 
Australia
1969 Posts |
 Posted - 26 March 2005 : 8:40:26 PM
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Sunday, January 25, 2004
An 18-year-old Springfield man pleaded innocent Friday to charges he beat his girlfriend's baby to death in order to ``toughen up'' the 8-month-old.
Arturo V. Alicea is charged with murder and assault and battery on a child in the death of Jeremiah Mattei.
"He got upset at the child for crying. He beat him about the chest and then threw him on the bed," Assistant District Attorney Howard Stafford said in court, according to the Springfield Republican newspaper.
Adults who were in the apartment where the alleged assault occurred told police Alicea entered the room where the baby was crying, then returned holding the infant. They immediately realized something was wrong and called 911.
The first officers on the scene performed CPR, according to the newspaper, but the baby later was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
A police report says Alicea told officers he wanted to "toughen up" the boy and did not want him to "grow up and be a punk."
He also told police he had been abused as a child and could not bear the baby's crying.
Alicea's lawyer, Donald Frank, said his client loved the child.
Alicea is being held without bail until a hearing in February.
He reportedly was in court just days before the alleged murder, answering a charge that he broke into a car.
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Man pleads innocent in baby death
