Prosecution and defense investigators on Monday examined the Lauderhill home where 17-month-old Shaloh Joseph was fatally injured on Jan. 4.
A 12-year-old boy, the victim’s second cousin, has been charged with murder in her death. Police said he attacked Shaloh with a baseball bat when she cried while he was watching cartoons.
About 10 people, including Broward’s Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Perper, prosecutor Maria Schneider, and Sandra Perlman, one of the boy’s public defenders, inspected the one-story house on a quiet street of well-tended lawns.
Perper had asked to visit the house because, he told the prosecution, it would be helpful for his investigation if he could scrutinize the scene. He told investigators at least one of Shaloh’s injuries could not have been caused by a baseball bat and he suspected she might have been knocked against a hard surface such as a wall, attorneys said in court.
As Perper left, he would only say the visit was worthwhile. Schneider also said the visit was “productive.” The team of state investigators, which also included a crime scene technician from the Lauderhill Police Department, spent about one hour in the house.
The defense team spent another two hours there and left with a bread bin-sized paper bag. Perlman said the defense hired a team of private investigators from Crispin Special Investigations Inc. to conduct their own photographic and forensic inspection of the home.
Perlman said the prosecution and defense are cooperating. “We all have the same goal in mind, we are working together to make sure that justice is done,” she said.
The house on the 1500 block of Northwest 31st Way has four bedrooms, including a converted garage. The toddler’s family lives in the master bedroom and four boarders were living in the house at the time of the death, the defense team said.
At a brief court hearing earlier in the day, the boy sat quietly with his hands and feet shackled. A Department of Juvenile Justice officer stood in front of him, blocking the view of TV cameras. The boy, who has sat meekly through all of the court hearings so far, occasionally peeked out to see who was in the courtroom. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel is not identifying him because of his age.
Prosecutors have until Feb. 18 to decide whether the boy, who is being detained in a juvenile lockup, should be charged as an adult or remain in the juvenile system. The victim’s parents, Ocnel Joseph and Merlande Alexis, said they don’t want him to be prosecuted. The state has offered to let him plead guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a sentence of 18 months to three years in a juvenile facility, followed by probation.
