A woman who “found” her toddler “unresponsive” in her playpen and alerted a mail carrier outside her Washington, D.C., apartment has been convicted of first-degree murder in her daughter’s death, federal prosecutors said. After the mail carrier first called 911 the afternoon of March 21, 2017, the carrier followed Faneshia Scott into her home and saw 16-month-old Rhythm Fields “on the couch, lifeless,” according to prosecutors. They described Rhythm as “cold,” and “stiff” with “fixed” eyes.
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When a former firefighter arrived at the apartment to perform CPR on Rhythym, it was “immediately” clear that she was dead, prosecutors said.
Nearly a year later, Rhythym’s death was ruled a homicide by the D.C. Medical Examiner’s Office, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
She died of several blunt force injures, including “contusions and abrasions of the head, neck, torso, and extremities,” a brain hemorrhage, sudden oxygen deprivation and 23 broken ribs, prosecutors said.
Now, a D.C. Superior Court jury has found Scott, 39, guilty of first-degree murder, first-degree cruelty to children and second-degree cruelty to children, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a June 11 news release. The jury returned guilty verdicts against Scott on June 11 after the trial, which began May 19 and went on for two weeks, court records show.
