"3-year-old’s beating death ruled homicide" Associated Press October 21, 2014
NEW YORK — The 5-year-old brother of a 3-year-old New York City girl police say was fatally beaten by her stepfather over the weekend has given detectives a detailed account of the assault, telling investigators the beating was prompted after the girl soiled her diaper, authorities said Monday.
Kelsey Smith forced stepdaughter Jeida Torres to smell the dirty diaper then kicked her, banged her head against a bed frame, and choked her while in a facility for the homeless in Brooklyn, the toddler’s older brother said, according to police.
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Smith remained hospitalized Monday in Manhattan after allegedly trying to slit his wrists at his mother’s Queens home. His mother called police Saturday after having a conversation with him and becoming worried that he might harm himself, police said.
Let him. That will be one less scum in the world.
Housing Bridge, a homeless services nonprofit, has a contract with the city to run the Brooklyn facility where the beating occurred, said Harry Fried, the group’s chief operating officer. He said he wasn’t permitted to comment further.
Smith, who police said was married to the children’s mother, had lived with the family at the Brooklyn apartment for three months.
He has 15 prior arrests, including for a 2010 robbery in which police say he slammed a 14-year-old boy into an iron gate, then put his knee on the boy’s throat before stealing his wallet with $10 in it, records show. Smith was 15 at the time of that arrest.
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