Raleigh man accused of asphyxiating baby goes on trial. A child witness will testify.
In 2012, an 11-month-old Raleigh boy died in his home off Glenwood Avenue, a homicide victim before his first birthday.
Medical examiners reported the baby had been asphyxiated in the house on St. Giles Street, but for five years, police made no arrests in the case.
One big change has come since then: A 3-year-old cousin witnessed the scene and will testify, having aged more than eight years, prosecutors confirmed.
On Monday, James Fidel Jennings goes on trial for the baby’s murder. He had been caring for the child, identified only as Z.H. in arrest warrants, at the time of his death, Raleigh police said at the time. But officers charged him only with unrelated embezzlement and gun charges until 2017.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said Friday that her office had initially declined to charge Jennings, but further investigation shifted the decision.
Assistant District Attorney Melanie Shekita said the cousin, 3 years old at the time, had grown enough to understand what happened to the boy, now identified as Zavion Haywood.
“He was happy,” the boy’s aunt Shantell Hunter told ABC-11, the N&O’s media partner in 2017. “He always smiled, joyful, laughed. He was just a happy, free spirit, happy baby.”
Child homicide cases
Wake County has seen numerous cases of child homicide in recent years.
In 2016, police charged 20-year-old Marcus Larenzo Alston with murder in the death of his girlfriend’s 10-month-old daughter, who had a lacerated kidney and liver.
In 2018, Wake County jurors convicted 55-year-old Elhadji Seydou Diop of first-degree murder for the killing of his wife and 2-year-old daughter. Diop, sentenced to life in prison without parole, had posted pictures of his victims’ dead bodies on Facebook.
Prosecuting child murders is always challenging, Freeman said. Unlike other victims, children have little documented history with criminal defendants such as text messages or a history of domestic violence.
“There aren’t some of the same kind of relationships and connections that might help tell a story,” she said. “Sometimes, for example, we have communication between a victim and a defendant.”
She noted that Shekita, the prosecutor in Jennings’ trial, has tried cases involving child abuse for more than 20 years and is frequently seen as the expert statewide.
This story was originally published January 3, 2020 at 1:11 PM.