WARNING! LINK CONTAINS GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF CRISSMIS' INJURIES.
By Bonnie Hobbs
Thursday, December 20, 2007
If she'd lived, Crissmis Noelle Reese Jones would be enjoying all the Christmas lights and looking forward to celebrating her second birthday on Dec. 30.
But she was never given the chance. Instead, as a newborn infant, she was beaten so brutally inside her Centreville home that she died at just five days old. And last Friday in Fairfax County Circuit Court, her 40-year-old grandmother, Heather Tracie Thomas, was
sentenced to three years in prison for the crime.
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State sentencing guidelines called for zero to six months in jail. But, stressing the severity of the injuries inflicted on Crissmis, Pavluchuk said this offense "warrants not probation, but a loss of liberty; significant incarceration is appropriate."
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THOMAS entered an Alford plea, not admitting guilt, but acknowledging the existence of enough evidence to find her guilty. Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Camille Turner said Thomas told Det. John Wallace that, the night of Jan. 3, 2006, she had six to eight shots of bourbon and rum."
"At 4 a.m., the baby was crying, and [Thomas] said she fed Crissmis and put her back in her crib," continued Turner. "When the baby cried again [after a short while], the defendant demonstrated to police on a stuffed animal how she shook Crissmis for about 20 seconds."
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But defense attorney Michael Arif said the child's mother, Samantha Jones, gave him a written statement, a year later, in which she admitted waking, Jan. 4, 2006, around 1 or 2 a.m., while Thomas slept, and bringing Crissmis into her own bed for some "mom-and-baby time."
But Jones fell asleep and woke up atop the infant. Said Arif: "She was scared because the baby wasn't responding ... so she shook her forcefully because she was frightened." When Crissmis suddenly opened her eyes, Jones placed her back into the crib and, not telling anyone what happened, raced back to bed and pulled the covers over her head.
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But Thacher, saddened, disgusted and angry at what happened to the infant, would have none of it. "I understand you entered an Alford plea, but I reject it out-of-hand," he told Thomas. "This wasn't a shaken-baby case — this was about a 5-day-old child who had 26 trauma sites to her body and four subdural hematomas to her skull."
THACHER painstakingly listed, one by one, each and every injury the newborn had sustained (......)
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Thacher told Thomas: "You've pleaded guilty and, if ever a case called for deviation from the guidelines, this is it."
He then sentenced her to 10 years in prison, suspending seven, and placing her on four years active probation upon her release.
BBM - Much more at link:
http://connectionnewspapers.com/article.asp?article=314143&paper=62&cat=104
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Heather Thomas
Housed: Virginia Correctional Center for Women
Projected Release Date: 11/29/2010