THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 12, 1996 TAG: 9607120456
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 51 lines
Tomika Weaver sat in Circuit Court on Thursday, taking notes but displaying no emotion, while listening to accounts of the day last fall when a 2-year-old girl died while in her care.
Weaver, 20, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Chenelle D. Foreman, who lived with her grandparents, Priscilla and Victor Diggs.
An autopsy report showed that the child died from a ruptured liver, prosecutor Jo Anne Spencer said in opening arguments.
On Sept. 7, 1995, Spencer said, grandparents Victor and Patricia Diggs dropped off Chenelle and her brothers, Travis, 3, and Maurice, 1, about 6:35 a.m. at Weaver's house on Webb Street, in the Pleasant Hill area.
Chenelle was ``a healthy, normal child'' when they dropped her off, Spencer said, but ``the next time they would see their granddaughter was at Obici Hospital. And she was dead.''
The defendant first told police that she never hit the child, Spencer said. But the next day, she said, Weaver admitted having hit the child eight or nine times in the stomach and under the ribs.
The child had soiled her pants, Spencer said, and ``she (Weaver) said she doesn't like to clean up somebody else's do-do.''
Weaver's attorney, Brent Rowlands of Virginia Beach, said Chenelle and her brothers had been abused by people other than the defendant.
``This is an ongoing tragedy,'' Rowlands said. ``We want justice, but we just don't want to compound the tragedy.''
He said, ``Certainly you'll find reasonable doubts to whether she had anything to do with the death or the abuse of any of the three children.''
That type of violence was ``completely out of character'' for Weaver, a loving, caring person, he said. She had graduated from Lakeland High School, where she participated in sports and never had any temper disorders, he said.
Dr. David Cash, the physician who treated the child at Obici, said she had been dead for some time when she was brought there.
``I would have to say that she could have sustained life no more than five to 10 minutes after that injury,'' Cash said.
If doctors had seen the child immediately after the injuries and if they had been given information about what had happened, he said, the outcome might have been different.
A conviction of first-degree murder can bring a prison sentence of 20 years to life, and a fine up to $100,000.
The trial will be delayed until Judge Westbrook J. Parker returns from a week's vacation if it is not concluded today.
KEYWORDS: MURDER TRIAL CHILD ABUSE by CNB