Newswire

Wiccan Found Guilty in Baby's Murder

Daniel Duffield convicted in brutal killing of girlfriend's daughter, faces life in prison

If looks could kill, Daniel Duffield would be facing more than life in prison for killing a 13-month-old girl.

Seated a few feet away from Duffield in a Summit County courtroom Tuesday was the girl's father, Daniel Cooper, and his unbending glare.

The father's eyes locked on Duffield before one guilty verdict after another was read. He only looked away after Duffield was escorted back to the county jail.

After five hours of deliberation over two days, the jury convicted Duffield, 32, of murder, involuntary manslaughter, three counts of child endangering and two counts of felonious assault for the Oct. 6 death of Jacqueline Mae Cooper.

He will be sentenced March 9 by Common Pleas Judge Marvin Shapiro and faces at the minimum a mandatory life sentence with parole eligibility after 15 years for the murder conviction.

Shapiro could extend his parole eligibility date for decades when he sentences Duffield on the other charges.

Vanessa McGlumphy, the girl's mother and Duffield's live-in girlfriend, is to be sentenced today for failing to protect her daughter. The 25-year-old Springfield Township mother pleaded guilty last month to involuntary manslaughter and child endangering.

Cooper meanwhile stood outside the courtroom after the Duffield verdict was announced. Surrounded by reporters and news cameras, he was asked about the penetrating stares he was sending Duffield -- looks he gave the defendant throughout the trial.

``What would go through your mind if someone just did that to your daughter?'' he said. ``There is (no appropriate sentence). How are you going to give my daughter back? How can you give back walking her up the aisle, taking her on a bicycle ride, teaching her things, taking her places? You can never give me that back.''

What happened to Cooper's daughter has been called torturous, brutal and bizarre. Authorities say that during her brief life, she was let down by the Summit County Children Services Board, Akron Children's Hospital doctors and her own mother.

Abuse not investigated

CSB failed to do a background check on Duffield when a social worker visited the girl's home -- a converted attached garage -- months before her death. Had agency workers checked a state database, they would have learned that Duffield had been convicted and served two years for abusing another child.

On Oct. 5, a day before Jacqueline was killed, she was at Children's Hospital, where her mother explained away a series of bruises, lying by attributing the marks to a collapsed crib. Prosecutors say Jacqueline was actually healing from previous abuse.

The next morning, the girl and her twin sister were left alone with Duffield while their mother went to get a prescription filled for Jacqueline, one written by hospital doctors for a cold. Inside the house, prosecutors say Duffield pummeled the girl to quiet her crying. She suffered bruising from head to toe, a severed liver, multiple broken ribs, a fractured ankle and a fatal blow that separated her skull from her neck and killed her instantly.

In addition, minutes to hours before her death, Jacqueline's feet and cheek were punctured more than 40 times with a tattoo needle, in what prosecutors say was an initiation ritual of sorts in a neopagan religion.

Jacqueline's twin sister, Layloni, was not harmed. She is currently living with McGlumphy's father.

Duffield and McGlumphy told investigators they were followers of the Wicca religion, but prosecutors in court said the acts against the child conflicted with the Wiccan tenet of not harming anyone.

Defense strategy failed

During the weeklong trial, Duffield's defense attorneys, Edward Bonetti and Kirk Migdal, tried to place blame for Jacqueline's death on McGlumphy. Shapiro thwarted that strategy in many ways with pretrial rulings that blocked defense introduction of several pieces of evidence.

Shapiro denied defense motions to allow jurors to be told of McGlumphy's guilty plea or the 38 love letters she wrote to Duffield following their arrest. The judge also allowed McGlumphy to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights outside the presence of the jury.

Down the courthouse hallway Tuesday, Duffield's mother sat in a wheelchair. Earlier, she dabbed tears as the jury's verdict came down. She said Shapiro's rulings crippled her son's defense and prevented him from getting a fair trial.

Jurors only heard testimony that McGlumphy was emotionally overwhelmed by the twins and had begged family members to take the children before something happened.

``I'm just saying my son is not guilty of this. The truth will come out. I can't understand why the truth didn't come out (at the trial),'' said Elizabeth Duffield, 55. ``I got letters from Vanessa myself stating that all Daniel did was care and love for her and those girls.''

Jury foreman Terry Brown of Akron, a father of three, said the panel was convinced of Duffield's guilt by the medical evidence, which Assistant Prosecutors Greg Peacock and Beth Aronson said narrowed a timeline and left only one possible suspect -- Duffield.

Brown, an insurance fraud investigator, said testimony and photographs of what happened to Jacqueline were difficult for many jurors to hear and see.

``It was tragic. Anytime a 13-month-old loses her life early and in such a horrendous and vicious way... there's nothing to say. It's horrendous, you can't go beyond that.''


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Posted by Editor at March 2, 2005 07:38 PM