Teen Mum Beats Daughter Dead For Refusing To Eat Noodles

An 18-year-old Chicago mum, Jasmine Jones, who fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter, Elliana Clairborne, after the girl refused to eat her noodles, has been charged with felony child endangerment in the death of a child, Chicago Tribune reports.

Jones and her daughter, Elliana Claiborne, had been staying with Jones’ boyfriend and his family at a residence in the 6300 block of South Sangamon Avenue, prosecutors said. About 3 p.m. on 28 November, Jones and her boyfriend, who is not Elliana’s father, were in a bedroom, where the boyfriend was reportedly playing video games, when Jones started to yell at the child to eat her noodles.

Jones allegedly punched the toddler four or five times in the stomach and buttocks when the little girl refused. The boyfriend told investigators the punches were so hard he believed “they would’ve knocked the wind out of him if he were the one being hit.”

The boyfriend also told officials he had seen Jones beat the toddler on multiple occasions, and that Jones was in the habit of giving her 2-year-old daughter “whoopings” until the latter cried. He added that the severity of the beatings depended on Jones’ mood. In particular if she had been “really upset” she would punch the child on her body, prosecutors said.

After beating the child for refusing to eat noodles, Jones left the home to buy marijuana. When she returned, she gave the toddler some laxatives as the toddler’s stomach appeared swollen, and the girl reportedly complained to her mum that she was in pain.

Later in the evening, the little girl fell down the stairs and the boyfriend’s mum asked the couple to take the girl to the hospital.

Instead of going to the hospital, Jones’ boyfriend laid the child in bed for the night in his sister’s bedroom. The toddler began moaning and told the boyfriend’s sister about her stomach and later vomited greenish liquid in the middle of the night, prosecutors said.

About 4 a.m. Sunday, the sister changed the toddler’s diaper and later that morning she returned to the room after smelling feces and thought the child needed her diaper changed again. But when she went to pick the girl up, she was cold and stiff, prosecutors said.

The sister then alerted everyone in the house, and her brother tried to resuscitate the child but a yellowish fluid came out of her mouth. His mother then touched the girl and realized that the girl was dead.
Jones and her boyfriend then took the toddler to hospital where she was pronounced dead two minutes later. An autopsy by the medical examiner’s office found that she died of multiple injuries.

Prosecutors said Elliana suffered a perforated intestine, and fecal matter had collected in her abdominal cavity. She also suffered bruises to her head, face, back and arms. She reportedly had healing burns on her foot, various healed scars and two rib fractures from earlier incidents.

It is said that Jones had previously lost custody of Elliana in 2014 after the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services found Jones had struck her in the face and threw her off a balcony where she landed in the snow over a cement landing.

At the bail hearing, Jones’ attorney, public defender Mark Douglass said Jones had gone as far as her junior year at Corliss High School and is six weeks pregnant. The Cook County Judge, Laura Sullivan, set bail at $1 million.