JEZAIH KING - 3 yo (2009) - Fort Wayne IN

Charges: Lawson, Latisha A. Statute Level Date
1. 35-42-2-1(a)(5)/FA: Battery - Death; Victim Less Than 14 Years and Defendant at Least 18 35-42-2-1(a)(5) Felony A 11/01/2009
2. 35-46-1-4(b)(3)/FA: Neglect Of Dependent Resulting In Death-Defn At Least 18; Vic Less Than 14 Yrs 35-46-1-4(b)(3) Felony A 11/01/2009
3. 35-46-1-4(b)(1)(A)/FC: Neglect Of Dependent Resulting In Bodily Injury 35-46-1-4(b)(1)(A) Felony C 11/01/2009
4. 35-46-1-4(a)(1)/FD: Neglect Of Dependent-Depndnt Put In Situation Endangering Depndnts Life/Health 35-46-1-4(a)(1) Felony D 11/01/2009
5. 35-42-2-1(a)(2)(B)/FD: Battery Resulting in Bodily Injury (vic less than 14 yrs and def at least 18) 35-42-2-1(a)(2)(B) Felony D 11/01/2009
6. 35-42-1-1(1): Murder 35-42-1-1(1) Murder 11/01/2009

05/16/2011 Hearing (8:30 AM) (Judicial Officer Gull, Frances C)
amwit jt/fcg

05/24/2011 Jury Trial (9:00 AM) (Judicial Officer Gull, Frances C)
day 1 of 4 days fcg

05/25/2011 Jury Trial (9:00 AM) (Judicial Officer Gull, Frances C)
jt/day 2 of 4 days

05/26/2011 Jury Trial (9:00 AM) (Judicial Officer Gull, Frances C)
jt day 3 of 4 days

05/27/2011 Jury Trial (9:00 AM) (Judicial Officer Gull, Frances C)
day 4 of 4 days fcg

https://mycase.in.gov/CaseDetail.aspx?CaseID=7253591

Charges: Hawkins, Natasha N Statute Level Date
1. 35-42-2-1(a)(5)/FA: Battery - Death; Victim Less Than 14 Years and Defendant at Least 18 (Aiding, Inducing, or Causing an Offense) 35-42-2-1(a)(5) Felony A 11/01/2009
2. 35-46-1-4(b)(3)/FA: Neglect Of Dependent Resulting In Death-Defn At Least 18; Vic Less Than 14 Yrs (Aiding, Inducing, or Causing an Offense) 35-46-1-4(b)(3) Felony A 11/01/2009
3. 35-44-3-2/FC: Assisting a Criminal 35-44-3-2 Felony C 11/01/2009
4. 35-42-2-1(a)(2)(B)/FD: Battery Resulting in Bodily Injury (vic less than 14 yrs and def at least 18) 35-42-2-1(a)(2)(B) Felony D 11/01/2009
5. 35-42-2-1(a)(2)(B)/FD: Battery Resulting in Bodily Injury (vic less than 14 yrs and def at least 18) 35-42-2-1(a)(2)(B) Felony D 11/01/2009
6. 35-42-2-1(a)(2)(B)/FD: Battery Resulting in Bodily Injury (vic less than 14 yrs and def at least 18) 35-42-2-1(a)(2)(B) Felony D 11/01/2009
7. 35-42-2-1(a)(2)(B)/FD: Battery Resulting in Bodily Injury (vic less than 14 yrs and def at least 18) 35-42-2-1(a)(2)(B) Felony D 11/01/2009

05/16/2011 CANCELED Hearing (8:30 AM) (Judicial Officer Schmoll, Robert)
Other

06/21/2011 Pretrial Conference (8:30 AM) (Judicial Officer Gull, Frances C)
JT/FCG

08/09/2011 Jury Trial (9:00 AM) (Judicial Officer Gull, Frances C)
FCG DAY 1 OF 3 DAYS

08/10/2011 Jury Trial (9:00 AM) (Judicial Officer Gull, Frances C)
DAY 2 OF 3 DAYS FCG

08/11/2011 Jury Trial (9:00 AM) (Judicial Officer Gull, Frances C)
DAY 3 OF 3 DAYS FCG

https://mycase.in.gov/CaseDetail.aspx?CaseID=7561227

Exorcism claim fails; mom guilty of murder
May 28, 2011

Lawson

Latisha Lawson still believes she did what God told her to do in
November 2009 when she forced her toddler to drink a mixture of vinegar
and olive oil.Even though it killed him. Even though she was convicted of murder and other charges in Jezaih King’s death.A
jury of six men and six women deliberated about five hours Friday
before finding Lawson guilty of all the charges prosecutors brought
against her.As Judge Fran Gull read the jury’s verdict, Lawson
sat quietly, her eyes looking down at the table. Her attorney asked the
judge to poll the jury, and all affirmed the guilty verdicts as their
own.As the jury left the courtroom, Lawson, now standing, sighed deeply with her right hand lightly tapping the table top.As
the bailiff put handcuffs back on Lawson, she looked at her family and
friends, who voiced their support for her, telling her they loved her.
Lawson cried as she left the courtroom.Gull set sentencing for late June. She faces at least 45 years in prison. She
was found guilty of murder, battery causing death and neglect of a
dependent causing death concerning her son, as well as neglect of a
dependent causing injury, neglect of a dependent and battery for
allegedly beating and neglecting her 10-year-old daughter.Lawson’s dramatic, and consistent, testimony wrapped up the evidence in the four-day trial. Prosecutors argued Lawson deliberately killed the toddler out of frustration with his tantrums and sleepless nights. But
her attorney said she was obviously under the power of some type of
delusion, having given herself over completely to a religious fervor
that supplanted reality. Lawson told the jury Friday the oil and
vinegar concoction was necessary to drive a demon named “Marzon” from
Jezaih’s body. She and her roommate Natasha Hawkins thought their other
children were possessed as well, so they too were given the mixture to
drink. All four children vomited it up, but Hawkins and Lawson held onto Jezaih while they exorcised the demon.Lawson’s
words from the witness stand matched what she told Fort Wayne Police
detectives in her second interview after they found Jezaih’s decomposing
body in a plastic storage tote Lawson was using as a nightstand in a
Wabash Street home. Within a few months in the fall of 2009,
Lawson broke up with her boyfriend, moved out of her apartment, moved in
with Hawkins and felt strongly her son was possessed by the demon, she
said.All of it was either directed by God or an attempt to get closer to God, she said. “I was willing to learn. I was wanting to learn,” she said. “I was learning how to learn him.”She
believed she saw the demon Marzon transform her son’s physical shape.
She said she believed the toddler was completely overtaken, and the more
information God gave her about the demon, the more changes she saw in
her baby son.Lawson said she believed her son became possessed because of how she lived her life when she was pregnant with him.“I had no love in my heart for life. I had no love in my heart for God,” she said. “He was pretty much grown in hate.”She said she knew it was the time to exorcise the demons that affected all in their home because God told her so.“It wasn’t something I planned,” she said.Lawson prayed, “pleaded the blood of Jesus” to protect the child’s body so when Marzon came out, the baby would be unharmed.“I knew and believe I was interacting with a demon at that time,” she said.Lawson
told the jury the “process” of the exorcism and giving Jezaih the three
doses of the mixture took a few days, and that the child did not pass
away immediately.“It was awhile,” she said. “We just held his body and were praying … and he was passing away.”After
he died, Lawson sought no help and ordered the children not to tell
anyone. Instead she and Hawkins put the body on Hawkins’ bed, praying
over it, sleeping with it and believing God would bring Jezaih back.“I
went in and just asked God to bring him back,” she said, sobbing. “He
did it in the Bible. He did it with Lazarus. He did it with a child in
the Bible.”So great was Lawson’s belief in her son’s soon
resurrection, she and Hawkins bought him a small blue hat and a pair of
“house shoes” a few months after his death.Eventually, while
Hawkins was staying with her boyfriend, Lawson put Jezaih’s body in the
closet, then transferred him to the plastic tote, which she kept with
her when she moved from the Hobson Road apartment sometime before
Thanksgiving in 2010.Under cross-examination by Allen County
Deputy Prosecutor Thomas Chaille, Lawson acknowledged putting her hand
over Jezaih’s mouth, but said she did so gently and without any attempt
to harm him.She was adamant that she did not strangle him, choke him or put her
hands near his throat, insisting that the whole process had been to help
her son, to deliver him from the demon.In closing arguments,
Bohdan urged the jury to recognize that Lawson’s actions were not that
of a sane person, that she was delusional and incapable of understanding
right from wrong at the moment of the crime.“This was not an
intent to kill,” Bohdan said, adding that Hawkins’ oldest daughter
testified Wednesday that she thought the women were crazy.“What sane person, two months after the death of their child, goes shopping for clothes for that dead child,” he asked.But Chaille said that there was no evidence ever presented that Lawson did not understand how wrong her actions were that day.“Jezaih was an unwanted kid,” he said. “This is a simple child abuse case … She still thinks she did the right thing. Scary.”
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20110528/LOCAL03/305289976

This is one of those "pick you lie and stick to it" stories. They will teach her all about exorcism in prison.

May she be exorcized daily. I'll be glad to ship oil and vinegar to the prison so everyone has both.

Published: September 17, 2011 3:00 a.m.
30 years for aiding toddler’s ‘exorcism’

Hawkins

FORT WAYNE – Sometimes, Jezaih King’s grandmother goes outside and screams her love up into the heavens.
But he’s still gone, and his grandmother, Patricia Lawson, was in court
again Friday; this time for the sentencing of Natasha Hawkins, 31, who
admitted to aiding in Jezaih’s November 2009 death.
In August, Hawkins pleaded guilty to aiding in battery causing the death of a
child. On Friday, Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull accepted Hawkins’
guilty plea and sentenced her to 30 years in prison.
The sentencing hearing was the last in the strange case of 2-year-old
Jezaih, whose body was found stuffed in a plastic tote more than a year
after his death.
He died when his mother, Latisha Lawson, assisted by her roommate Hawkins, performed what the women, later
described as an exorcism.
Believing Jezaih was possessed by a
demon, the women gathered all their children in the living room of their
apartment on Hobson Road. Each of the children was given a concoction
of olive oil and vinegar. The older children threw up after drinking the
mix, but Jezaih fought every effort to get him to swallow it, according to testimony.
According to court documents, Hawkins held the
toddler’s legs and said a prayer while Latisha Lawson poured it down his
throat, holding his mouth closed so he couldn’t spit it out.
Jezaih died from what was later determined to be asphyxia by compression to his neck.
After the toddler’s death, Lawson and Hawkins placed his body on a bed where he remained for weeks.

It was eventually transferred to a plastic storage tote, which Lawson took
with her when she moved from the Hobson Road apartment last fall.
The mummified corpse was found in the tote, which Lawson was using as a
bedside table when she was picked up by police more than a year after Jezaih’s death.
In the weeks leading up to “exorcism,” and the
year afterward, Lawson cut off nearly all contact with family members
who reported her missing to the police out of concern for Jezaih and
Lawson’s 10-year-old daughter.
Which is shy Patricia Lawson was
again before the court Friday morning, asking Gull to remember her
grandson as she sentenced Hawkins.
“I have lost a grandson,” Patricia Lawson said, adding that the allegations of Hawkins’ behavior
to the toddler, as well as the other children in the home, were devastating.
“I am asking God to help me not to hate,” she said. “I am trying not to have bitterness in my heart.”
Sometimes, though, Patricia Lawson said she when she goes outside, she yells up to the sky “Jezaih, I love you.”
Also speaking during Friday’s hearing were Hawkin’s daughter and Latisha Lawson’s oldest daughter.
Hawkins’ daughter told her mother how much she missed her, told her she loved her and said she enjoyed going back to school.
Latisha Lawson’s daughter, though, said something quite different to the court.
With her leg swinging underneath the table, she began with “Dear, judge.”
“People think it was all on my mom, and it isn’t,” she said.
“Tasha dragged my mom into this. Tasha made my mom be a slave.”
Gull accepted the plea agreement, which called for Hawkins to serve a
sentence of 30 years in prison. All the other charges against her,
including neglect of a dependent causing a death and multiple counts of
battery to her own children, were dismissed.
Before she was sentenced, Hawkins said she was truly sorry and remorseful.
“I never meant to hurt anyone,” she said, quietly.
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20110917/LOCAL03/309179985/1002/LOCAL