Prince William County prosecutors argued in circuit court over the past week that Ventura’s baby returned into the care of a “tormenter,” a mother so upset that the baby even existed that she repeatedly abused her during the first two years of her life. Ventura escaped detection, they said, by lying to authorities and slipping through a system that repeatedly failed to identify what they called a pattern of chronic abuse.
“A lot of people let this child down,” Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Sandra Sylvester told jurors. “The police, social services, occupational therapists, doctors, and the one person who should care for her, her mother, the defendant.”
On Wednesday, jurors found Ventura guilty of four counts of felony child abuse, one count of aggravated malicious wounding and two counts of assault and battery. Jurors recommended a prison sentence of 34 years and a $100,000 fine; under Virginia sentencing rules, Ventura would be behind bars until after her 55th birthday should Prince William County Circuit Court Judge Mary Grace O’Brien uphold that sentence at a hearing scheduled for June 8.
The case, one in a stream of such child abuse trials in local courts, highlighted the path that Prince William County has followed in the three years since the high-profile death of Lexie Glover. Lexie, a special-needs girl known to police and social services officials, was left for dead in a frigid creek by her mother in January 2009. It was just days before Ventura brought her daughter to the hospital for her head injury.
Lexie’s death, and the shortcomings it identified, led authorities to rethink the county’s treatment of at-risk children and spawned a revamping of the way police investigate abuse. New protocols and training, police officials say, ensure such cases do not go uninvestigated.
With that new approach — involving social workers, doctors, more frequent forensic interviews and a team of detectives assigned to such cases — Ventura was arrested about a year after she brought her daughter to the hospital for the head injury. An observant day-care worker noticed scratches and bite marks on the baby’s body, and Prince William County police Detective Dan Harris delved into the girl’s history and interviewed her mother, who admitted some of the abuse.
A thorough examination of Ventura’s baby turned up two old elbow fractures and injuries a doctor said were too numerous to count. Authorities said they believe the intervention likely saved the baby’s life.
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