Source: (Photos: Harris County District Attorneys Office) / (Photos: Harris County District Attorneys Office)
A Black mother in Houston, Texas was sentenced to life in prison for beating her infant daughter to death.
According to the Harris County DA office, on April 4, Tradezsha Trenay Bibbs, 29, was slammed with a life sentence for the 2016 murder of her 4-month-old daughter Brielle Robinson.
“Our office stands up for all victims, but a baby is the most innocent of victims,” said Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg in a statement. “We believed that a life sentence was appropriate for this brutal murder and a Harris County jury agreed.”
Bibbs killed the young infant because the child’s father didn’t want a relationship with her, authorities said.
Assistant District Attorney Keaton Forcht, one of the chief prosecutors in the District Attorney’s Office, claimed he heard evidence that Bibbs didn’t show remorse for beating Robinson when the young infant was rushed to the hospital with multiple injuries.
“Bibbs deserved a life sentence for what she did to her child,” Forcht said. “She beat her countless times and seemed to care about as much about the death of her daughter as she did about the life of her daughter.”
On Monday’s trial, the jury convicted Bibbs of capital murder and sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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What happened to Brielle Robinson?
In 2016, officials responded to a call at the Red Carpet Inn near Gulf Freeway where they found Bibbs in a room with her daughter. The single mother told officials that after she dropped the 4-month-old on the bed, the young infant fell to the floor and began crying. She then struck Robinson several times across her face, chest, ribs and legs until the child stopped weeping.
The child was later transported to Texas Children’s Hospital where doctors determined she had suffered multiple fractures and severe head trauma. During the trial, Bibbs admitted to abusing her daughter but pled not guilty by reason of insanity.
Bibbs has filed an appeal
After Monday’s verdict, the troubled mother filed an appeal requesting for a new trial. She argued that the evidence wasn’t enough to support the denial of her insanity defense.
Bibbs claimed that she was dealing with stress and postpartum depression shortly after she gave birth to Robinson, according to the appeal. She reached out to officials from the City of Houston Nurse Partnership Program for assistance with the child because she feared she would inflict harm on herself and her daughter. An attendant was sent to supervise the young mother but its unclear when the program ended.
Child Protective Services (CPS) were notified about Bibbs’ child abuse well before Robinson’s death.
When she was 3-months-old, officers from the Houston Police Department were sent to investigate after she was brought into the hospital spitting up blood. Medical professionals at the facility called CPS after they also noticed bruising on the child’s face.
At the time, Bibbs claimed that her daughter’s injuries were a result of “a narrowly-avoided car accident and a car seat that was not properly secured.” She also told officials that the child’s father was a source of stress.
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