March 27, 2002 – A Tutu Hi-Rise man has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with the beating death last December of 2-year-old Rasheem Todman.
Vancito Farrington, 32, was being held in jail Wednesday in lieu of $125,000 bail. He was arrested Tuesday evening on a warrant signed March 21 by Territorial Court Judge Ishmael Meyers.
Farrington, an unemployed father of two, was baby-sitting Rasheem and four other children the day before Rasheem was taken to Roy L. Schneider Hospital suffering from vomiting and diarrhea.
Rasheem died Dec. 18 of "blunt trauma to the stomach," according to an autopsy performed by the medical examiner, Dr. William Fogarty, who ruled the death a homicide.
In court papers, Police Detective Lionel Bess wrote that Rasheem's brother has told investigators that Farrington struck Rasheem several times in the stomach with such force that it made the little boy double over. In another statement to police, the witness said Farrington had hit Rasheem as many as 13 times in the stomach, Bess wrote, information that was consistent with the injuries found by the autopsy.
Rasheem's father told investigators that Farrington had approached him before the boy's funeral to say that he did not willfully kill the child. The father said Farrington told him that thought Rasheem "could have taken more than that," Bess wrote.
Farrington is to enter a plea to the charges in court on April 4.
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