"She never regained consciousness. She had been in a comatose state throughout her stay in the intensive care unit," he said. Police said that Juvon Pickette, 18, beat Ashley for two hours on Sept. 6 because she ate breakfast sausages that her mother, Pecynthia Bradley, 24, had prepared for him. During the beating, police said, Pickette slammed the girl's head against the wall and refrigerator and pressed his fist into her abdomen to try to force her to vomit. Police said that Bradley had watched while Pickette beat her daughter. They said the mother took Ashley to the hospital five hours after the beating and the hospital notified authorities. Bradley and Pickette were charged with attempted murder and aggravated child abuse after the beating. Police said prosecutors would go before a grand jury next week to increase the charges to first-degree murder. They remained in jail Monday. The decision to remove the girl from life support was made after a meeting between a judge, the child's court-appointed guardian, her doctors and a hospital ethics panel. The hospital spokesman said Ashley's story had generated a steady stream of inquiries from across Florida and as far away as North Carolina, which included offers to adopt her and gifts of cassette tapes, flowers and toys. Family members have mounted a campaign to collect money to pay for her funeral.

Past Stories:

Man pleads guilty to smothering baby so he could listen to Garth Brooks
Dentist wanted for allegedly abusing and photographing patients
Neighborhood wonders how tragedy slipped through the cracks
Man found guilty of strangling granddaughter for licking cupcakes
Holocaust-themed abortion protest elicits violence from students
Mom who had manicure while baby starved sentenced to 4 years in prison
Abused Florida toddler dies after being taken off life support
Openly gay student beaten, left to die in Wyoming attack
Two brothers charged, with mother, in 6-year-old's beating death in S.C.
Louisiana becomes a battleground for 14-year-old boy in church detention center
Two college athletes charged in beating death of homeless man
Convicted child abusers allegedly molest kids after regaining custody
Florida teens charged with killing father's girlfriend
Father confesses he conceived child with intent to kill
Quadriplegic jailed on pot charge could cost Georgians $660,000

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Abused Florida toddler dies after being taken off life support

Copyright (c) 1998 Nando.net
Copyright (c) 1998 The Associated Press

MIAMI (October 5, 1998 2:26 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -- A three-year-old girl who police say was beaten for two hours because she ate her mother's boyfriend's sausages has died after being removed from life support at a Miami hospital, a hospital spokesman said Monday. Ashley Smithson was pronounced dead early Sunday afternoon at the University of Miami's Jackson Children's Hospital, where she had been in a coma since Sept. 6, said hospital spokesman Omar Montejo.