Homicide can be tough to prove

Fourth in a four-part series

The videotape is known in the Utah child protection world as "The Nanny Cam." It is horrifying, even for the most seasoned investigators and social services workers.

On camera, an 11-month-old girl sits quietly in a crib. She isn't fussing or crying. She's just sitting there, watching the bedroom door when it swings open and a shirtless, burly man storms in. He seems very tall, towering over the crib. He violently grabs the baby. He holds her up with one hand and punches her in the stomach. Her tiny body pitches upward with the force. Before she has a chance to catch her breath, the man closes his fist and does it again. Now the baby begins to cry. Within a breath she is screaming.

Less than one minute into what is a 20-minute videotaped beating, unsettled viewers push back their chairs and walk out of seminars held for social workers, police and other child welfare officials.

How dare they walk out at the first gasp of their own discomfort, say advocates who watch over these children. How dare they leave when what they see is sickening and dumbfounding. Stay. Watch. Watch and see what happens to abused children. Stay, understand, then do something.

The man, who is still in prison for this crime, takes the baby from the view of a camera hidden in a teddy bear. It sounds like the pummeling continues. We can't see the beating, but the inertia of what he is doing to her shakes the camera. We can hear the man breathing with the effort. The child gasps for air between cries.

The infant re-enters the camera's view, flying like a rag doll headlong into the crib. She whimpers when the man leans in again, then shoves her backward again with a hand that is as big as she is. She stops crying. For a few seconds, he stands over her as the infant rolls over and sits up.

"What's the matter?" he asks, reaching out to her. And the girl extends her little arms, reaching back.

The man returns several times over the next 20 minutes to continue the assault, but at least there is some comfort offered by those who present the video. The man is now in prison.

The baby's mother told her baby sitter, a woman with a family, that her 11-month-old daughter had some suspicious bruising.

Nothing's going on at my house, the sitter assured the child's mother. She suggested setting up a hidden camera to ease the woman's mind.