Mother charged with murder in abuse death of Charlenni

The stepmother of 10-year-old Charlenni Ferreira smashed the top of the girl's head with a metal broom handle about three months before Charlenni died, according to court testimony yesterday.

Margarita Garabito told detectives, "I did it with a broomstick," as she repeatedly slapped her hand to her chest, implicating herself, Homicide Det. Norma Serrano testified as she showed how Garabito had pounded her chest.

Assistant medical examiner Marlon Osbourne testified that the wound on Charlenni's head had been stuffed with gauze, and then covered with a hair weave held onto her head by pins "embedded in her scalp."

The head wound - which measured seven inches by four inches and went down to the girl's skull - was just one of Charlenni's many injuries, Osbourne and another doctor said yesterday at Garabito's preliminary hearing.

Authorities contend that Charlenni suffered years of abuse by her stepmother and father in their Feltonville home, on C Street near Loudon. The girl died Oct. 21, after being found unconscious in the home.

Yesterday, Municipal Court Judge Patrick F. Dugan held Garabito, 43, for trial on all charges, including first- and third-degree murder, conspiracy and possession of an instrument of crime.

Charlenni's father, Domingo Ferreira, 53, hanged himself in his city jail cell four days after the girl's death.

Osbourne said that Charlenni died from multiple blunt-impact injuries and "pleural empyema," a collection of pus and fluid between the lungs and the inside of the chest. He said that the fluid build-up caused her left lung to collapse and was a source of infection.

Charlenni suffered five fractured ribs, Osbourne said. Three were fractured about a month before her death, then broken again.

Assistant District Attorney James Berardinelli yesterday displayed photos of Charlenni's various wounds on a large projection screen as Osbourne testified.

In addition to photos of Charlenni's large, months-old head wound and of her nearly bald head (her hair couldn't grow back over the scar tissue or where her wound was), there were pictures of a fresh wound on the side of her head, scars on her back, a fractured shoulder blade, evidence that her nose had been broken, and bruises on her chest and arm.

Charlenni's left hip also had a "bony deformity" caused by a months-old blunt trauma, and round bruises on her left thigh, consistent with finger marks, Osbourne said. There also was evidence of tears in her vaginal area.

Garabito, dressed in a gray sweatsuit and wearing lightly tinted brown eyeglasses, did not show any emotion when the photos were shown. She frowned slightly as she listened to a Spanish interpreter translate.

In a statement she gave to police, read in court by Serrano, Garabito said that the large head wound occurred "three months ago, maybe sooner. I hit her with a metal broom handle on her head . . . but nothing to kill her."

She said that the last time she hit Charlenni, six days before the girl's death, was because Charlenni wanted to use a calculator to do her homework.

Garabito said that she would hit Charlenni with brooms, sticks and her hand, and that it had "been going on for over a year."

Cindy Christian, a doctor at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia who specializes in abuse cases, testified yesterday that while "her lungs were collapsing," Charlenni also suffered sexual abuse as evidenced by "very new" tears in the girl's private area.

Berardinelli said that a police report showed that swabs taken from Charlenni's rectal and oral areas had tested positive for sperm, but that swabs taken from her vaginal area did not. He said after the hearing that there was insufficient DNA from the rape-kit swabs to determine who sexually assaulted Charlenni, but would not rule out that other evidence may point to a perpetrator.

Garabito, in her statement to police, said that her two sons, ages 16 and 18, who also lived in the house, never slept with Charlenni, and that Domingo Ferreira hadn't, either. She said that her husband did not hit Charlenni.

Defense attorney Barbara McDermott contended that there was no evidence that her client intended to kill Charlenni and argued that she should not be held on first-degree murder charges. The judge disagreed, saying that Charlenni's "life on Earth was pure hell."