4 face jail time in beating, burning deaths of Detroit kids

Four adults either pleaded guilty or were sentenced Monday in the deaths of four Detroit children ranging in age from 15 months to 7 years old.

"It's just a sad day when we're this busy dealing with child deaths," said Patricia Leonard, head of the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office's child abuse unit. "At the end of the day, it doesn't bring the children back. But if we can send a message that these reckless acts are killing children, then at least we're making progress."

Lynda Baker, 47, a foster mother convicted of fatally beating her 4-year-old foster son, Joshua Causey, was sentenced Monday to 5 to 15 years in prison. Joshua became nauseated and began to vomit on March 18 and was taken to St. John Hospital, where he died.
A Wayne County medical examiner testified at Baker's trial earlier this month that Joshua died of blunt force trauma to the head. Baker first gave police conflicting statements, and later confessed to beating the boy on March 14 and 15.

Shirley Lippett, 52, pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree child abuse in the death of her 7-year-old nephew, Garry Young, who died in a fire after being left alone in his home. She is to be sentenced Nov. 11. and faces 6 months to 4 years in prison, according to a plea agreement.
Garry died in April after being left in his St. Louis Street home while Lippett made an early morning run to Utica to sell crack cocaine. Firefighters found Garry in a hallway outside his bedroom.

Elizabeth Ann Brown, 22, was sentenced Monday to 5 to 30 years in the scalding death of her 18-month-old son Michael Ragland. She pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaugher in September.
Brown left her four children -- 18-month-old twin boys, a 3-year-old girl and a 4-year-old girl -- with her 12-year-old niece on Aug. 21, at Brown's east-side home on Lillibridge. The baby-sitter cared for the children overnight, prosecutors said.

Around 10 p.m., Aug. 21, Michael got into a bathtub filled with 154-degree water. The skin peeled completely away from his thighs, prosecutors said. The baby-sitter found the toddler screaming and had no way to contact Brown, who returned home at 10:30 the next morning. She saw her son's injuries, but did not take him to a hospital. Instead she put ointment on the burns. Michael later died at the home.

Brown, previously convicted of federal credit card fraud and retail fraud charges, also pleaded guilty as an habitual offender, which increases her maximum sentence by 15 years.

Kenyon Barley pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the shaking death of a 15-month-old girl, who had ignored an order to stop walking toward an electrical outlet. Barley punched, kicked, stomped and ultimately killed Shakeima Richardson. He will be sentenced Nov. 12, to 15 to 32 years, according to a plea agreement.
Barkley, 29, a parole violator, was the live-in boyfriend of Shakeima's mother. He admitted to beating Shakeima -- who died of blunt force trauma to the head, chest and abdomen, and bleeding on the brain -- on several occasions in the home in the 48200 block of Montgomery.