In the days following the death of Jayla Belton, the police waged a very limited and negligent investigation into this death.

Consider the facts:

1.) A battered, seriously malnourished baby, with 30+ bruises, broken ribs and an injured liver arrives at the hospital and dies shortly thereafter. As testified to later by the prosecution's own medical expert, it is rare for such injuries to be caused in one incident;

2.) approximately 20 police officers swarm the Murray home that night, searching for evidence and a "murder weapon," and none is found;

3.) numerous witnesses are interviewed,  and the police are repeatedly told of Jayla's unusual symptoms that day and that no-one heard her cry out in distress late that afternoon;

4.) the obvious fact that the serious injuries sustained by Jayla Belton's could in no way be perpetrated by an 11-year old, in a few minutes, without making any sound in a small house, or without leaving a trace of physical evidence;

5.) Derrick Shaw, boyfriend of Jayla's mother, (who has a criminal record), drops Jayla off at the Murrays' house despite being told not to.

• He lied more than once to police about what he had been doing that day.
• His visit with Judy Belton at the hospital that night is abrupt and out of character for those who have just lost a child.
• His car vanishes that day.
• Witnesses have seen him neglect and abuse Jayla more than once.

Despite finding no evidence at the Murray home in addition to what is described above, the police decide not to investigate Derrick Shaw and Judy Belton.

The police spent less than 30 minutes questioning Shaw and Belton on the night of Jayla's death, despite the fact that this child was seriously underweight and had injuries that could have reasonably been caused by child abuse.

The  police did not:

• investigate the Belton/Shaw home;
• interrogate Derrick Shaw or Judy Belton;
• look for Shaw's car
• follow their own police procedure and the national statistics bearing out the fact that adult household members are the main perpetrators of child abuse, especially those resulting in the death of a child.

Instead, they pursue the unreasonable and uncorroboratable by going after Lacresha, a child with no history of violence or psychotic episodes and no physical evidence linking her, her family or her home to the death of Jayla Belton.

The police failed to do their job!  We demand that they reopen their investigation!

With no evidence and no witnesses available, the prosecution desperately needed a "voluntary confession." The APD knowingly and immorally colluded with the D.A.'s office to circumvent juvenile law and deny an 11-year old girl her right to protection under the law in order to squeeze a statement out of an innocent child.

How voluntary was it?

Lacresha Murray was 11, had an I.Q. of 77 and a 4th-grade reading level. Our juvenile laws are specifically geared to protect vulnerable, unknowledgeable children from illicit and threatening police tactics. To achieve that, juvenile law requires that police take juvenile suspects before a magistrate to have their rights explained to them, to explain the charge against them and the consequences thereof, and to appoint them an attorney when deemed necessary relative to the seriousness of an accusation.

Lacresha Murray was suspected of and would be charged with capital murder, the ultimate crime. Austin Police detective Pedraza testified during the second trial that he wanted to interrogate Lacresha without having to obey juvenile law, so he called prosecutor Stephanie Emmons at the D.A.'s office and asked how he could manage this.

Ms. Emmons gave him the following advice: Leave Lacresha in the custody of CPS. Do not question her at the police station, which would put her into police custody and would thereby require taking Lacresha before a magistrate, who would most likely assign her an attorney. She told Pedraza to avoid notifying CPS that Lacresha was a suspect in a capital murder case. She then advised Pedraza to call CPS and arrange for a "friendly interview" with Lacresha. Once granted, he was to go over there with other officers and the necessary interrogation equipment.

Detective Pedraza admitted on the stand that he then had Officer Angie McGowan, call Child Protective Services (CPS) and lie.  Officer McGowan told them that Victims Services wanted to interview Lacresha. Once CPS had turned Lacresha over to Officer McGowan, she turned Lacresha over to three waiting homicide detectives.

Detective Pedraza followed Emmons' advice and got what he wanted: a 2-3/4 hour (or likely, longer) interrogation without an attorney or adult guardian present to get in the way of his goal – a confession, forced and false, if necessary.

The Interrogation

The officers interrogating Lacresha failed to indicate start or stop times on the interrogation tape, and there are three unexplained occasions when the tape recorder is turned off. Therefore, there is no way to know how long this interrogation actually lasted and what they said to this child while the tape was not running. There is, however, almost three hours of dialogue where the police officers threatened, cajoled and lied to Lacresha to try to get her to say that she was angry at and intentionally beat Jayla.

She continually denied both, 39 times. Lacresha denied any wrongdoing and explained to them many times that she went to the bathroom and on coming out, saw Jayla "shaking real bad" on the bed in her sister's room, rushed and got her and took her to Mr. Murray for help.

The officers were not satisfied with this as it wouldn't account for Jayla's injuries, so they got tough with her. They told her that if she didn't tell them the "truth" (what they wanted to hear), they would "bother" her family members; they lied to her and told her that her family had told them that she beat Jayla; they told her she was lying, and that if she told them "the truth," it would all be over and she could go. She continued to deny any wrongdoing.

Not getting anywhere near their goal of getting Lacresha to confess she was angry that day and had beaten Jayla, they put more pressure on her, telling her they and everyone knows she did it and that everyone thinks the worst of her. Then they offer her an out – "you picked up the sick baby and while running with her to your grandfather, isn't is possible that you might have accidentally dropped her?" "Isn't it possible" became the officers' call to arms. They told Lacresha that a medical examiner with 20 years of experience said something happened and that it must have happened while she was with the baby. "Isn't it possible," they said, that "you could have accidentally dropped her while taking her out of her room?" Three times they present this scenario to this frightened and worn-out child. Three times she denies it.

They begin punctuating their suggested scenario with "we're going to stay here until you tell us the 'truth' and "you might have dropped the baby, and that's perfectly alright. . .tha t happens all the time." After more prodding and threats, and following the last of the "isn't it possibles," Lacresha responds with "probably." It's possible. The officers say, "okay, now we're doing good, Lacresha." They prod her more, and then ask her if it wasn't also possible that she could have accidentally kicked the baby as she dropped her. Lacresha's eventual response: maybe.

The "Confession"

During the next part of the interrogation, Lacresha was forced to make up the accident scenario suggested by the officers and show them how she might have "accidentally dropped Jayla." She complies with their demands and figures out a way to satisfy them, but it doesn't work because it doesn't explain four broken ribs, 30 some bruises and a severed liver.

The police go back and forth about which side of Jayla's body Lacresha was to have accidentally kicked. She makes it up that she dropped her and kicked her on the right side, but since that doesn't match with the broken ribs on the left side, they go through this "right, no left" questioning several times throughout the interrogation.

Getting as much as they could, the officers typed up a statement, eliminated the "accidentally could have" parts and presented it to Lacresha for her review.

They asked her if she could read, and she said "not well, but I try hard."  Without reading it aloud to her, as would be necessary for a child with a 4th-grade reading level and 77 I.Q., they give her the statement.

She looks at it for several seconds, and asks them "home-a-seed?"

An officer responds, "homicide."

She asks, "what's that?"  He doesn't answer her. Nor does anyone else.

On the tape recording of the interrogation, one of the detectives specifically asked if she was being forced to sign the (false) statement.  Her intial response was "Yeah."  However, the detective quickly came back with a very forceful "What?!" and she changed her response to "No."  She signed the statement.

The police had her sign a statement with no proof she could read it and with a clear indication that she did not understand the meaning of the most important word in that statement, 'homicide'! They deliberately refused to explain it to her. Further, one of the officers also admitted on the stand that they neglected to read her all of her rights because they were afraid it would encourage Lacresha not to tell them all that they wanted.

And it didn't stop there...

The police continued questioning Lacresha for 20 minutes or more, becoming more abusive and aggressive in their questioning, again trying to get her to say she was angry that day because a four-foot drop and accidental kicking could not have produced the kind of injuries sustained by Jayla Belton. Only an angry beating could have caused those injuries.

But Lacresha again stated she was not angry and that she did not deliberately do anything to hurt Jayla. Then she finally got tired and told them she didn't want to talk to them anymore. This horrible, illegal and immoral interrogation finally ended.

Read the Full Transcript of the Interrogation of Lacresha Murray

Could your child have fared better during an interrogation such as this?
We're not sure many adults could have.