Jury gets case of Xbox dad charged in tot's battering death

Assistant District Attorney James Berardinelli stomped his foot five times on the courtroom floor yesterday to symbolize the five deadly blows that led to 17-month-old Alayiah Turman's horrific death.

"What could be more wicked that battering that little baby's head five different times?" Berardinelli said as he banged his foot on the floor.

Berardinelli said the powerful blows on Sept. 7, 2006, fractured her skull in three places.

The prosecution contends that Anwar Salahuddin, who also uses the name Tyrone Spellman, fatally pummeled his 17-pound daughter after she tugged at the cord on his Xbox's controller, knocking it over.

Berardinelli told jurors yesterday that the beating happened in the front bedroom of the house that Salahuddin shared with his brother.

Berardinelli and Salahuddin's attorney, Bobby Hoof, gave closing arguments yesterday before Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart. Salahuddin is charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child in connection with Alayiah's death.

Berardinelli said of Salahuddin in his closing arguments: "His entire life and daily routine is about playing the game.

"What do you think someone with that kind of obsession is going to do when it gets knocked over? What do you think is going to happen?

"The skull fractures on that baby are what happened."

Before Berardinelli delivered his closing before the jury of seven women and five men, Hoof delivered his summation, assuring the jurors that he wouldn't keep them long.

However, in his almost 40-minute closing argument, he asked jurors to acquit Salahuddin based on inconsistencies in the testimony from Alayiah's mother, Mia; testimony from a police officer who drove Salahuddin to the hospital the day Alayiah was killed, and inconsistencies in the statement that Salahuddin allegedly gave homicide detectives.

Hoof said that a pre-autopsy report showed that Alayiah had a fractured arm before the day she was killed.

"Wouldn't you think that a caring mother would take her child for care?" Hoof said.

"No, because she was the one who fractured that child's arm!" Hoof yelled, as Turman sat tensed in the front row of the gallery.

Hoof also contends that the testimony of a police officer about a statement his client made the night of Alayiah's death was untrue.

The lawyer said the officer didn't tell anyone that Salahuddin mumbled under his breath, "I didn't mean it," until Thursday when he testified before the jury.

Hoof also claimed that the three-page confession Salahuddin provided to homicide detectives was coerced.

The jury got the case at 1 p.m. Deliberations were to resume today. *