Defense: Foster mother didn't kill boy, 4

November 14, 2007 01:17 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

Investigators failed to search hard enough for the real killer of Dontel Jeffers and prosecutors wrongly put the 4-year-old's foster mother on trial for his murder, a defense attorney for Corinne N. Stephen said today in court.

The attorney, John F. Palmer, said Boston Police and Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley's office did not conduct crucial forensic tests on physical evidence that could have identified other people who had contact with the boy. Police found a blood stain in the Dorchester apartment where Dontel and his foster mother lived and recovered wire that may have been used to bind the boy's hands, but did not test the evidence for DNA. Palmer said police also failed to look underneath the fingernails of two other people who may have had contact with Dontel, whose face was gouged by a human fingernail.

"They weren't interested in developing evidence that would have helped my client," Palmer told the Suffolk Superior Court jury as he asked for an acquittal at the close of Stephen's trial on a second-degree murder charge. Closing arguments were watched today by Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, relatives of Stephen, and Agatha Jeffers, Dontel's paternal grandmother, who unsuccessfully tried to get custody of the boy.

Palmer described Stephen as an unlikely killer because she served in the Army National Guard, had taken college level nursing courses, and drove Dontel to Caritas Carney Hospital the day he died in March 2005. "I would suggest to you that a murderer would not bring her victim to the hospital," Palmer said.

David Deakin, an assistant Suffolk district attorney, said the evidence was overwhelming that Stephen murdered Dontel, who was healthy when he was entrusted to her care on Feb. 24. Ten days later, his body was bruised and battered.

Stephen should be held responsible for Dontel's death because she refused to seek medical help even though she knew he was in so much pain she gave him massive dose of Tylenol with codeine, Deakin said.

"The choices Corinne Stephen made cost Dontel Jeffers his safety, cost him his health, cost him his chance at childhood -- and it cost him his life,'' Deakin said. "She was late for the hospital, ladies and gentleman, she was far too late.''

Stephen was responsible for Dontel's death or stood by and let others attack the boy, giving him a black eye, ruptured intestine, bruised throat, bruised arms, and ligature marks around his wrists and ankles, Deakin said. Doctors at Caritas tried for 40 minutes to revive the child, but were unsuccessful.

The forensic tests highlighted by the defense were not performed because it would not have provided new information about the people known to have contact with Dontel, Deakin said. The DNA of the two people in question would have shown up because they were at the Ballou Avenue apartment where the boy was living, he said.

The jury is expected to begin deliberations today.