Stepmother gets life in beating death of girl, 10

For three weeks, the sorrowful details of Charlenni Ferreira's short life were recounted to a Philadelphia jury. They heard of a gaping hole in the 10-year-old's head, concealed with a hairpiece fastened by bobby pins to her skull. There were broken ribs, the result of beatings she endured. Her hobbled gait was unmistakable.

The girl was murdered, and the jury had to decide whether her father, stepmother, or both were to blame.

"The injuries were the worst I have ever seen," Assistant District Attorney Andrew Notaristefano said. "They were the worst that so many people involved in this case have ever seen."

On Friday, when the jury foreman read the verdict of first-degree murder, Margarita Garabito clenched her court-appointed defense attorney and cried. The 48-year-old Feltonville woman will spend the rest of her life in prison, without parole.

Her husband and the girl's father, Domingo Ferreira, 53, hanged himself while at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility on Oct. 25, 2009, three days after being arrested and four days after Charlenni died.

Common Pleas Court Judge Glenn B. Bronson described Garabito's actions as some of the "most horrible" he has ever seen.

"I just cannot conceive of a more terrible misbehavior than torturing a child to death," Bronson said in court.

Notaristefano said circumstantial evidence - including a statement to detectives, later recanted, by one of her sons - portrayed Garabito as the main abuser.

Glenny Ferreira-Rosario, Charlenni's 31-year-old half-sister, said Friday, "I feel my father and my sister have been served justice. I do believe in the American justice system."

Charlenni entered Garabito's house only after allegations of abuse against her birth mother in Puerto Rico. She lived there until 2006, when the mother lost custody.

For the next three years, the prosecution alleged, Garabito beat her stepdaughter with broom handles. Charlenni's autopsy found she died from a lung infection resulting from five untreated broken ribs.

The autopsy revealed a four- by seven-inch gash in her scalp that exposed her skull, bone deformities on her hip and arm, bruises on her back, arms and legs, a cauliflower ear from beatings, and fractures to her thumb and pinkie. There was evidence of sexual abuse.

Defense attorney J. Michael Farrell said Garabito was guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Earlier in the week, Garabito testified that she was intimidated into silence by domestic abuse. She said her husband beat Charlenni and threatened to kill her and her three teenage children if she called authorities.

At Friday's sentencing, Garabito stood to make a statement, which was translated from Spanish for the judge.

"God knows I have a good heart," Garabito said. "God knows what I did and did not do. I do not lie."

She shook her head and spoke with anger. She turned to her two sisters, who wailed in the back of Courtroom 1007.

"My children are now yours," Garabito told them.

Testimony from a former Philadelphia medical examiner established a timeline for Charlenni's broken ribs. The injuries, Marlon Osbourne said, occurred over one to four weeks before Charlenni died, during a time when Domingo Ferreira was visiting relatives in the Dominican Republic.

Farrell, the defense attorney, said Garabito was denied a fair trial because Notaristefano said during his closing arguments that the defense's forensic pathologist - Jonathan Arden, who challenged the prosecution's timeline - was paid for his services. Arden was authorized to be paid, Farrell said, because the defense was appointed by the court.

Farrell disagreed with the verdict, but did not deny the atrocities.

"How can you disagree with the enormity of the injuries? I have seven children," Farrell said. "The courage of this young girl to have lived with the years that she did with the suffering - quiet suffering - that she must have exhibited is the true heroine of this story. I'll never forget her."