Nixzmary Brown's stepfather Cesar Rodriguez (left) looks at himself on video admitting beating the 7-year-old. Defense attorney Jeffrey Schwartz (c.) and Judge Priscilla Hall watch.
The photos of Nixzmary Brown's bruised, lacerated face and body were brutal enough to drive two spectators from the courtroom during a hearing Thursday.
Accused killer Cesar Rodriguez didn't flinch when investigators showed him the closeups hours after the murder of his 7-year-old stepdaughter, a police video shows.
In fact, the tape - which jurors will see today or Monday - reveals the accused killer coldly catalogued which injuries he had caused.
"The cut in the chin she got when she fell on the floor when I threw her," he told Assistant District Attorney Linda Weinman the evening of Jan. 11, 2006.
"What about the mark above the eye?" Weinman asked.
"She hit herself," Rodriguez claimed.
"What about the black eyes?" Weinman pressed.
"The black eyes, she managed to do that to herself."
The prosecutor showed a photo of Nixzmary's battered back.
"That's from me beating her with the belt," Rodriguez said, referring to marks on her buttocks.
He was less sure about some marks on her waist.
"Same thing - from the belt or my hands," he said. "Maybe pound her on her back."
"What about this mark on her ankle?" Weinman asked later.
"That was from the bungee cord," Rodriguez answered.
"That was from the bungee cord when you tied it around her leg so she couldn't leave the room?" Weinman said.
"Right," replied Rodriguez.
The questioning lasted 45 minutes, with Rodriguez detailing shameful abuse he had heaped on the second-grader.
Nixzmary weighed just 36 pounds, but Rodriguez described her as a beast who attacked her siblings and stole food.
He admitted he tied her to a chair in a back room, kept her out of school to hide her bruises, and withheld yogurt as a punishment.
When Nixzmary took a yogurt and damaged a computer printer hours before her death, Rodriguez became enraged.
"I took her into the bathroom and I put cold water on her," he admitted. "I asked her if she did it, and she didn't want to answer me, and so I turned off the water and I left her in the room on the floor."
He denied hitting her head against the faucet or the wall.
Weinman asked if he was aware Nixzmary died from a massive brain injury, and Rodriguez said he was.
"I wouldn't know how she did that," he said.
Jurors weren't present for the video, played in a hearing about whether to redact a section in which Rodriguez is asked if Nixzmary ate cat food.
So they didn't hear defense lawyer Jeffrey Schwartz make an insensitive remark while arguing the question should be cut.
"There's calories in cat food," Schwartz said, quickly adding, "I'm not saying it's appropriate to feed it to a child."
Schwartz plans to argue that Rodriguez's statement was coerced, hoping the jury will discount it, but prosecutor Ama Dwimoh said the tape is "one of the most powerful pieces of evidence we have ... it's his words."
Original Article-
In court, Nixzmary Brown's stepdad identifies the wounds he inflicted
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