I'm normally not a fan of the death penalty but in this case I am willing to make an exception.
An outraged Cook County judge on Thursday convicted a woman of the 2013 murder of her granddaughter, saying she found overwhelming evidence that the killing was "exceptionally brutal" and that 8-year-old Gizzell Ford had been tortured to death.
Those findings by Judge Evelyn Clay mean Helen Ford, 55, faces up to natural life in prison for the killing of Gizzell, who was nicknamed Gizzy and was a straight-A student who was looking forward to starting fourth grade.
"That child suffered a slow and agonizing death," Clay said as Gizzy's aunt sobbed in the packed courtroom. "That little body looked like it had been pulverized from head to toe. ... Her treatment (of Gizzy) was evil."
The grandmother showed no emotion on hearing her fate. Except for when she took a pass at the last minute on testifying in her own defense, she had shown the same stoic look throughout the four-day trial despite often-harrowing testimony.
In a front-page article Thursday, the Chicago Tribune detailed the harrowing account of Gizzy's death. The bright girl had written entries into two journals — excerpts of which were made public at her trial — that showed her mood took a much darker turn as the summer break of 2013 progressed and the abuse worsened.
"I hate this life because now I'm in super big trouble," she wrote July 11, two days before her strangled, badly beaten body was found clad only in a pair of torn green underwear in the family's West Side apartment.
Prosecutors say the 70-pound girl had been tortured to death, beaten from head to toe by a 275-pound grandmother who sometimes wore a belt around her neck that she used for punishment.In addition to the two journals entered into evidence at Ford's trial, prosecutors played cellphone videos showing Ford and Gizzy's father berating her for breaking rules as the terrified girl was forced to stand — a sock or rag stuffed in her mouth. She was tied to her father's bed for days, denied food and water, and once punished for trying to sneak a drink from the toilet, according to testimony.
The father, Andre Ford, who had long been bedridden with chronic scleroderma, was also charged in Gizzy's murder, but he died in Cook County Jail of an apparent heart attack in August 2014 while awaiting trial.
In closing arguments earlier Thursday, prosecutors said that even before Gizzy was strangled, she was already dying of kidney failure because her grandmother and father deprived her of water and food for days.
"What happened to Gizzell was an abomination," Assistant State's Attorney Ashley Romito told the judge. "It makes you lose faith in the human race."
Ford's, lawyer, Jennifer Hodel, an assistant public defender, portrayed her client as an overworked grandmother who may have abused and neglected Gizzy but never intended to kill the child.
Hodel also argued that Gizzy was an out-of-control girl who harmed herself. She told the judge her grandmother tied up the girl to prevent her from further harming herself. She asked that the judge instead find Ford guilty of involuntarily manslaughter.
"She was unable to overcome what she had on her plate," Hodel said of the grandmother. "Is she guilty of not asking for help? Absolutely. ... Is it first-degree murder? It is not."
But Romito blasted the defense's version of events as "absolute lies."
"The only thing we have left of this child is her memory, and it's a good one," Romito said of Gizzy, a spelling bee winner, two-time student of the month and volunteer in the young authors program at her school.
Prosecutors said that they believe an open, maggot-infested wound found on the back of Gizzy's head was caused by her head rubbing on a metal pole when she was tied to her father's bed for days. She was kept there as a virtual prisoner after school ended in June until her death less than a month later, prosecutors said.
The wounds to Gizzy's face were so severe that a Chicago police forensic investigator with 30 years on the job wept as she described them in court — a highly unusual display of emotion from a seasoned crime scene professional testifying at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
"I'm sorry, this never happens," Officer Nancy DeCook said as tears streamed down her face after she viewed a photo of the dead child's badly bruised face.
Gizzy's death marked yet another indictment of the state's beleaguered and chronically underfunded child welfare system, which has operated under a federal consent decree for decades. An investigator for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services had visited the family's West Side home a month before Gizzy's slaying, and a child-abuse doctor who examined Gizzy found a suspicious injury on her buttocks weeks before her death but did not report any suspected abuse, a Tribune investigation found.
A Cook County judge had awarded temporary custody of Gizzy to her father eight months before her death. The father, an unemployed felon who lived with his mother in the South Austin community, had argued the girl's mother was homeless and failed to get their daughter to school regularly.
Both prosecutors and Ford's attorney agreed that the grandmother never should have been given custody of Gizzy. Romito called the ruling "a disgrace" and said Ford wanted custody so Gizzy could help care for her bedridden father. Prosecutors have also argued in court papers that Ford was also after income from child support or state aid.
sschmadeke@chicagotribune.comTwitter @SteveSchmadeke
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
