A jury convicted a Gary woman Friday in the death of a 20-month-old foster girl in her care.
Jamilia Hodge, now 36, was charged days later in the May 4, 2017, death of Emma Salinas, 1, at her home on the 7500 block of Ash Avenue in Gary’s Miller section.
She was convicted of murder, aggravated battery, neglect and one count of battery, according to court records. Her sentencing hearing is set for April 13.
A murder charge carries a possible sentence from 45-65 years.
Autopsy findings showed the girl suffered a possible dislocation of vertebrae in her neck and died of asphyxia due to suffocation, which was complicated by blunt force trauma to the head, according to court documents. Lawyers said the child was likely dead for several hours before paramedics were called.
In closing arguments, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Michelle Jatkiewicz said Hodge killed the girl and eventually admitted her own guilt at points during 12 hours spent being interviewed by detectives.
Defense lawyer Scott King questioned why prosecutors failed to call the two men living in the house, including Hodge’s boyfriend, who could have provided the jury with their own accounts.
During the trial, he called an expert witness who questioned the techniques used during her two police interviews where a pair of detectives questioned her for several hours. She spoke to them without a lawyer present.
King also asked if her boyfriend was the one who last saw the child alive around 12:30 a.m.
The 5-day trial concluded one of Lake County’s longest pending murder cases nearly 5 years after Hodge was first charged and jailed.
Hodge was unusually calm and collected on her 911 call after finding the girl dead, because she already had several hours to process what happened, Jatkiewicz said.
She “didn’t want to believe” she could have smothered and killed the girl, the prosecutor said. In the end, Hodge ended her second interview admitting guilt, because it was the truth, she said.
King countered jurors couldn’t convict on a gut feeling on whether someone was lying. Police were human and motivated to solve the murder of a tiny child.
“They were impacted emotionally,” he said.
The fact that prosecutors built their case without calling the boyfriend, or other man who lived there was “fairly incredible,” King said.
“Why wouldn’t you want to hear from them,” he asked the jury. “You don’t need to?”
While prosecutors pointed to her “calm” demeanor after her arrest, King said that didn’t prove anything. No jurors could know how Hodge reacted under stress as she continued talking about the case to herself once detectives left the room for a while.
“Her personality and language is not on trial,” he said.
Detectives questioned Hodge in a way that they were feeding her what appeared to be leading questions, rather than her telling them actively what happened, King alleged.
During most of her questioning, she largely denied guilt, or swung back and forth on the question of her involvement. No lawyer was present, according to the tapes.
“It is not a confession,” he said. “It is the product of the continued pressure.”
Jatkiewicz countered Hodge was lying throughout, but “genuine” when she broke down in tears near the end of her second police interview when detectives asked what she wanted them to tell Emma’s mother.
According to the tapes, Hodge admitted at one point she was overwhelmed at home with 5 kids, including her own daughter. Detectives learned she had a bad headache that night.
“That I’m sorry,” Hodge said, crying to detectives. “That I let (Emma’s mom) down. That I didn’t mean any of this.”
“It’s the hardest thing she’s ever had to do in her life,” Jatkiewicz said in court. “Admit to murder.”
Hodge told investigators she took two of her foster children to school that morning, returned home to take a third child to school and came back home when she noticed Emma’s face was facing the wall in the same position as when Hodge left, according to the probable cause affidavit.
Emma had arrived home about 7:30 p.m. May 2 from visiting her biological mother, who complained the child was sick with a fever and diarrhea, records state.
Hodge’s boyfriend returned to the Miller home about midnight May 3 and heard Emma yelling or crying in the crib while the other children in the bedroom were trying to sleep, records state.
The boyfriend told police he opened the bedroom door and told Emma to quiet down and she did, records state.
Hodge said she did not get out of bed when her boyfriend and his brother came home from working out, but both said Hodge was awake and in the kitchen when they came home, records state.
In the follow-up interview, Hodge said she put a hand over the toddler’s face to stop her from crying and put her left hand on the child’s chest as she lay on her back, records state. As she spoke with investigators, Hodge started crying and said she was sorry for what happened and that it was an accident, records state.
