Conflicting arguments over which parent killed girl, 4
The lawyer for a Calgary man charged with murdering his daughter told court Thursday that the girl’s mother could be responsible for the child’s death.
Oluwatosin Oluwafemi, 44, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the 2014 death of four-year-old Olive Rebekah Oluwafemi.
Defence lawyer Rebecca Snukal, in her closing argument, said the Crown has failed to prove her client is guilty. “What is the evidence that this man sitting here did anything to Rebekah?”
Snukal told the judge-alone trial that a family friend said the active girl liked to jump on the stairs and was “the kind of child that would get bumps and bruises from her rough play.”
The lawyer also pointed to testimony from the girl’s mother, Olabusona (Itunu) Oluwafemi, who said she would sometimes discipline their daughter by pulling her ears, hitting the palm of her hand with a flip-flop, smacking her or yelling.
“She could not recall what discipline she used on Rebekah that week,” Snukal said. “In the midst of all of Itunu’s difficulty with her memory, the court has to take into consideration that Itunu could have had significant alone time with Rebekah, where she could have violently disciplined her and injured her.
“The Crown has prosecuted the wrong parent here.”
Crown prosecutor Donna Spaner said although there’s only circumstantial evidence in the case, common sense makes it clear the man killed his daughter.
“The Crown theory is that on Dec. 19, 2014, Oluwatosin Oluwafemi inflicted multiple blunt-force trauma upon Rebekah,” Spaner said.
“He assaulted her in a manner that included multiple blows, punches, kicks and/or slaps. The assaultive behaviours culminated with an event of force that caused the catastrophic damage to her neck, to her cervical spine.”
Spaner said Oluwafemi, who had lost his job months earlier, was the only person in the home looking after the child.
“He alone had exclusive care and control over Rebekah. And he alone had the exclusive opportunity to inflict non-accidental bluntforce trauma upon her. Rebekah began actively dying in his care.”
Justice Suzanne Bensler said she will likely have a verdict in March.
The trial heard Oluwafemi called his wife at work that afternoon, and she rushed home to find him performing CPR on their daughter.
A paramedic testified he arrived 20 minutes later and found the girl unconscious, not breathing and in cardiac arrest. He said he received no explanation from the people in the home about what happened.
Spaner said the girl was a normal four-year-old with no health problems, except some allergies. Medical evidence suggests a simple fall would not have caused the severity of her injuries, which were equivalent to jumping head first into a swimming pool and hitting her head, Spaner said.
“Using common sense and reasonable inferences from all of the evidence in this case, it is beyond a reasonable doubt that Oluwatosin Oluwafemi caused Rebekah’s death,” she said.