Food and herbal nutritional products » Herpes » Child's horrific injuries described, prosecutor tells Coe: 'You are guilty'
Child's horrific injuries described, prosecutor tells Coe: 'You are guilty'
View PDF | Print View
by: Guest
Total views: 206 Word Count: 493
Lucas Coe, left, charged in the sexual assault of 4-year-old Emma Thompson, listens to defense team member Rick DeToto during the prosecution's opening arguments on Tuesday.
Prosecutors on Tuesday wasted no time in opening statements detailing - sometimes loudly - the brutality of the case before the jury, accusing Lucas Coe, the boyfriend of Emma Thompson's mother, of raping the 4-year-old shortly before her June 2009 death from abdominal trauma that included a severed pancreas.
"The defendant shoved an object or his male sexual organ into that poor child and ripped her apart," Assistant Harris County District Attorney Tina Ansari told jurors.
Shouting as she pointed at Coe, Ansari told jurors they would convict him of super-aggravated sexual assault of a child, "You will say to Lucas Coe, 'You did this! You are guilty! You are guilty! You are guilty!' "
The heightened charge means that Coe will not be eligible for parole if he is convicted. Prosecutors have said it is a stricter punishment for a crime that is easier to prove than trying to convict him for the girl's death.
Sitting in a black suit, blue shirt and a tie, Coe, 28, quietly watched Ansari tell jurors that an emergency room nurse will testify that the pre-schooler had a "giant tear to her vagina, not a baby tear, but a giant tear."
Ansari also said Coe, Emma and her mother, Coe's girlfriend, Abigail Young, had genital herpes, a sexually transmitted disease.
Weeks before Emma's death, a doctor who discovered the child had genital herpes notified Texas Child Protective Services.
The state agency's investigation was stymied by Abigail Young's lies, Ansari said.
A former registered nurse, Young was sentenced in July to 20 years in prison for failing to protect her child.
Young left her husband for Coe, "a bad boy without a job or any ambition," about three months before Emma's death, Ansari said.
She said Coe frequently baby sat the child. He also spent an hour alone with her, the day she died.
Coe's defense attorney William Van Buren said the evidence in the case was "terrible," but that Emma was not sexually assaulted.
He said the vaginal tear could have resulted from a "straddle fall," and a neighbor would testify that she saw blood in the child's panties.
Van Buren asked jurors to check their emotions at the door because they are expected to see photos of the dead girl and her autopsy. Coe is not charged in her death.
"This is a terrible, terrible case," Van Buren said. "At the end of this case, you will tell the state, 'You have not proved your case beyond a reasonable doubt.' "
Although the girl had herpes, Van Buren said, it could have been transmitted by casual contact.
"And we don't know who had herpes first," Van Buren said.
Emma was pronounced dead at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital late on June 27, 2009.
Additional information:
Herpes and Pregnancy
Genital Herpes and Pregnancy March of Dimes
Vaginal Herpes Educate Yourself
Symptoms of vaginal herpes
Genital Herpes
Genital herpes
Symptoms of Vaginal Herpes Women's Health eHow.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/stor...
Related "Herpes":
- Scientists working on chronic stress vax
Stanford scientists may be on the verge of a vac ... - How to Get a Sexually Transmitted Disease Without Having Sex
Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) can be tran ... - Herbal Treatment for Genital Herpes
There are many people who are simply like me and ... - The Midnight Fryer: STD 101
Center for Disease Control, an STD, or sexually t ... - "No hay mala suerte eterna": Rafael Nadal
Hay que superarlos. Y para superarlos hay que pas ...
Rating: Not yet rated (votes: 0)
