A man “mummified” the 18-month-old son of his girlfriend in a blanket because the toddler wouldn’t stop crying and should be convicted of murder in the child’s suffocation death, a prosecutor told jurors Monday.
Cheyenne Mateo Fuimaono’s attorney said the 23-year-old Buena Park man is innocent of murder, child abuse resulting in death and child abuse and urged the panel to keep an open mind.
Fuimaono, then 21, was watching his live-in girlfriend’s son, Malik Perez, while she was attending nursing classes on the day the boy died, said Senior Deputy District Attorney Steve McGreevy.
Police were called to their residence at 6822 San Benito Way about 1:25 p.m. on Nov. 30, 2012, and after some “pounding on the door,” the defendant opened it, the prosecutor said.
Fuimaono told police conflicting versions of what happened, McGreevy said. Initially, the defendant said he went to make lunch for himself and Malik, who was “resting peacefully,” and was away from the child for a couple of minutes before he returned and saw the toddler in distress, the prosecutor said.
The first officer on scene, Ron Catanzariti worked to revive the child until paramedics arrived and took him to Western Medical Center in Anaheim, where physicians managed to get the boy to show some signs of life, McGreevy said. The toddler was transferred to Children’s Hospital of Orange County, where he was declared brain dead.
Tape recordings of investigators questioning the defendant will be played for jurors, who will “hear multiple versions of what happened to Malik,” McGreevy said.
The defendant told investigators he believed the boy was “spoiled” because he was “fussy … and cries a lot,” McGreevy alleged.
Fuimaono told investigators he had anger management issues for which he “self-medicated” with marijuana until about a week before Malik died, McGreevy said.
The defendant objected to the boy’s crying because it interrupted his recreational time, according to the prosecutor. At times, the defendant would put his hand over Malik’s mouth to try to stop his crying, which inhibited his breathing to the point of the child “seizing up,” McGreevy alleged.
Once, while holding his hand over the boy’s mouth, the toddler bit the defendant, prompting Fuimaono to “pop him in the chin,” McGreevy alleged.
Four days before the child’s death, he scratched the defendant in the ear while sleeping in bed with his mother and Fuimaono, McGreevy said. In return, the defendant bit the child in the right arm, but claimed the child got the bite mark while at a Chuck E Cheese restaurant, McGreevy alleged.
Malik was “a healthy baby with healthy organs,” according to McGreevy, who said the cause of death was suffocation that occurred when the defendant wrapped the boy up in a bed sheet.
Pointing to a photo of the linen displayed for jurors, the prosecutor said, “This is the bed sheet used to end Malik’s life.”
After the defendant “mummified” the child, he could see Malik “struggling,” but turned his back on him anyway and went to the kitchen, McGreevy said.
“He knows he should go back but he doesn’t,” the prosecutor said.
Fuimaono’s attorney, Rick Vallejo, said investigators developed “tunnel vision” and never focused on any other suspects in the case.
“If you look for something hard enough, you will find it. Those words are the theme of this case,” Vallejo said. “Sometimes terrible things happen and no one is to blame.”
The defendant and Malik’s mother started dating in high school, but then broke up and fell out of contact, Vallejo said. Malik’s father left soon after the child was born, and the defendant and the boy’s mother reconnected, he said.
The child’s mother moved in with Fuimaono and the two struck an agreement in which he would watch Malik in the mornings while she was at school and she would take over when he went to evening classes, Vallejo said.
As first-responders worked to revive Malik, the defendant was “distraught,” Vallejo said.
— City News Service