Witness: Mom slammed Nixzmary's head

Jurors recoil in horror as detective holds photo of Nixzmary's battered body.

The secret witness in the Nixzmary Brown murder trial is a jailhouse snitch who says the dead girl's mother admitted slamming her daughter's head against a bathtub, the Daily News has learned.

Her bombshell testimony could shore up the defense of stepdad Cesar Rodriguez,, who admits to horrific abuse of the 7-year-old, but denies delivering the blow that killed her two years ago.

Defense lawyer Jeffrey Schwartz seemed to allude to the witness' account yesterday, when he said mom Nixzaliz Santiago admitted "smashing her head repeatedly into the bathtub until the child was lifeless."

"Those are her words, not mine," Schwartz said outside court after an emotional session in which jurors wept and glared at photos of Nixzmary's battered body and Rodriguez's written statement about the abuse.

A gag order prohibits the parties from speaking about the witness, and Schwartz later denied he was referencing her story in his comments.

"I'm going to call the mother to the stand and she will say that - and that's what I meant," Schwartz said, refusing to discuss how he knew what Santiago would say.

Sources told The News the witness is a woman who spent time behind bars with Santiago and came forward with the confession claim.

The Brooklyn district attorney's office deemed the witness "untrustworthy" and decided it would not put her on the stand, a source said.

After Schwartz blamed Santiago for killing Nixzmary in his opening statement, prosecutors decided they had to alert the defense to the witness' existence.

That triggered a series of closed-door hearings that ended with Justice Priscilla Hall ruling the witness could testify in a closed courtroom for safety reasons.

Santiago's lawyer denied his client - who faces a separate trial - ever told anyone she killed Nixzmary.

"Whoever said that is a liar and is just trying to make trouble," said the lawyer, Robert Abrams.

Whatever the witness says, it may not be enough to counter the prosecution evidence - which had the jury weeping and staring at Rodriguez with hatred yesterday.

Six photos of the green and black bruises and cuts on Nixzmary's body were displayed, and jurors cried, glanced away or stared at their hands.

The injuries were appalling: a deep circular wound around her left leg where she was tied with a bungee cord, a terrible bruise below her ear near a painfully thin neck.

Later, several jurors shot Rodriguez daggers as a detective read the first of three statements in which he admitted whipping, binding and beating the second-grader.

"She was becoming a little devil and couldn't be control with nothing," Rodriguez wrote, adding that he played an "angel" role in the family.

"I tried grabbing the belt and spanking her with my hand," he wrote.

Prosecutor Ama Dwimoh called his comments about Nixzmary a "rationalization" of his brutality. "I guess the jury is really going to decide who the angel really was and what Cesar Rodriguez really is," she said.

Original Article -


Witness: Mom slammed Nixzmary's head