NEWS: Mother Charged over 2 Year old Daughter's Death in 2003., page 1

Acting on a small number of tips received after a public appeal, 28 year old Erika Mendieta has appeared in court charged with second degree murder over the beating death of her two year old daughter Emmily Lucas in 2003. After a drawn out and extensive investigation that took 8 months to complete by the coroners office, police offered a 50000 dollar reward for information when the coroners report came back that the child had died of cardiac arrest after severe head trauma.

www.theglobeandmail.com
Emmily Lucas was rushed to hospital in November of 2003 after police were called to a home in the Bathurst Street and Steeles Avenue area. The girl, just shy of her third birthday, was suffering from severe trauma and breathing problems. She died 10 days later.

Emmily was raised by an aunt and uncle, but was returned to her mother's care a few months before she died. It is unclear why that occurred, and Det. Sgt. Bockus declined to comment, saying only that it "will come out in court. I know the situation, but I don't think it's appropriate that I talk about it now."

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It is believed that from the start of the investigation there was limited suspects including Emmily's mother and stepfather of who she was in the company of at the time of her death.

Hopefully this case will serve to raise the awarness and warning signs of this problem. The child had been removed from the mother's care previously and investigations should be made to find out why more safeguards were not in place for the child and to ensure it won't happen again.

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[edit on 15-3-2005 by Mayet]