PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — Nothing a judge could do would keep a 21-month-old girl safe from her mother, especially after she left the child with a convicted sex offender.
That’s the argument of Peoria County prosecutors who asked Circuit Judge Paul Bauer to hold Kaleeyah Sprinkle, 24, pending the outcome of allegations she murdered her son, the girl’s twin.
In making that finding, Bauer found that Sprinkle presented a real and present threat to both her daughter and to the community.
The girl was discovered by police in the back seat of a vehicle, covered up with a blanket and heavily bruised. A video obtained from a body camera showed the moment a police officer opened the back door of the car.
The girl reached for the police officer, crying and clearly afraid. Her face was streaked with tears and covered with bruises.
Bauer agreed and as such, Sprinkle will remain at the Peoria County Jail as the case winds through the court system. She will next appear in court July 3 for a pretrial conference with an initial trial setting for later that month.
She faces charges of aggravated battery to a child for hurting each child and also murder for the death of Amiri Robinson who died on May 9, three days after he was brought to a Peoria fire station unresponsive.
The hearing Thursday morning focused more on the boy’s twin sister than Amiri as she is still living and prosecutors argued that Sprinkle was a threat to the girl as well as to the community as a whole.
The charge alleges, “she, without lawful justification, knowingly struck the head and the body of Amiri Robinson . . . knowing such acts created a strong probability of death or create bodily harm”
The boy, according to court records, was “naked and had bruising and bleeding around his left eye, scratches on his anus and deep bruising to his buttock and flank.” Firefighters rushed him to OSF HealthCare Saint Francis Medical Center in critical condition.
Once there, the boy was diagnosed with a brain bleed, lacerations to his liver and doctors noticed he had two fractures, which were healing on his pelvis. He was comatose for an undetermined period before he died.
Given the child’s age, Sprinkle, if convicted, could spend the rest of her life behind bars.
Danielle Sipiora, who is with the county’s public defender’s office, argued her client should be released with stringent conditions. Sipiora noted that Sprinkle’s boyfriend, Zaxton Johnson, 34, has a long criminal history and that he too was a person who was possible thought to have done to the abuse.
But prosecutors noted that Sprinkle had sole custody and possession of the children. That mattered as the injuries to the two children were “acute” and fairly recently. Second, they argued, that Sprinkle had allowed the girl to be with Johnson, a sex offender, while she took the boy to the fire station.
Johnson had been convicted of sexual assault in 2005 in a juvenile case. He also had a litany of other offenses that included domestic battery.
At the time, the girl was in the back seat of an SUV that had been driving around the city. She was under a blanket with “extensive pattern bruising, swelling, and scratches to the side of her face, neck, head, shoulders, ear, chin and legs.”
