Kearns father, girlfriend charged in 4-year-old's death

KEARNS — One doctor called it "one of the worst series of intra-abdominal injuries" that a team of physicians at Primary Children's Medical Center had ever seen, according to court documents.

On Monday, the day 4-year-old Vanessa Hart was laid to rest at Elysian Burial Gardens, the Salt Lake District Attorney's Office charged 21-year-old Marina Navarro and 21-year-old Clinton Hart, Vanessa's father, with murder in connection with the young girl's death.

Navarro was charged with criminal homicide/aggravated murder, a first-degree felony, and three counts of second-degree felony child abuse. Hart was charged with first-degree felony murder and two counts of intentionally inflicting serious injury on a child, both second-degree felonies.

"It just makes me sick to think how anybody could even hurt Vanessa, someone who's not able to defend herself," Vanessa's aunt and godmother Jennifer Lopez said. "I just don't see it happening."

Documents filed in 3rd District Court on Monday outlined disturbing and heart-rending descriptions of the injuries the little girl suffered. Doctors at Primary Children's found evidence of "multiple severe injuries, including massive trauma to (Vanessa's) head, massive swelling of (Vanessa's) brain" and neurological damage possibly caused by several impacts to the head, according to court documents.

In addition, doctors discovered Vanessa had swelling in her bowel wall, tearing near her colon, a rupture near her stomach and a partially crushed pancreas. The injuries likely were caused by "multiple forceful blows or crushing forces" to Vanessa's abdomen, according to court documents.

The combination of the fresh head injury and multiple blows to Vanessa's abdomen, with the resulting shock and blood loss related to both, "were the proximate cause of death" to the young girl, according to court records.

On June 13, Clinton Hart went to work, leaving his two children, ages 4 and 2, in the care of his live-in girlfriend, Navarro.

At about 11:20 a.m., Hart received a text message from Navarro that Vanessa had fallen down the stairs, was lethargic and was having a hard time breathing, court documents stated. When Hart arrived home, he found Vanessa unconscious, court records state.

Doctors at Primary Children's, however, said Vanessa's head injuries could not have been caused by falling down a flight of carpeted stairs, according to charging documents.