geoff@sri-unix (08/10/82)
AM-Teen Convicted,210
Girl Found Guilty In Tot's Slaying
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - A 14-year-old girl was convicted
Thursday of beating and stabbing to death a 3-year-old neighbor girl.
Prosecutors said Vivian Morris is the youngest person ever convicted
in Broward County of first-degree murder. Circuit Judge Charles Abel
Jr. immediately dismissed the jury, which deliberated nearly four
hours, without asking them to recommend sentence.
Abel said the court wouldn't consider the death penalty because of
the defendant's age. He set sentencing for April 27. Miss Morris faces
a minimum 25 years imprisonment, and could be sentenced to life.
She sobbed softly as she was led out of the courtroom.
''Oh, no! Oh, no! It isn't fair,'' cried her mother, Jo Ellen
Morris. ''Justice was not done. They convicted an innocent child.''
The middle-school student was described by the state as a
''neighborhood bully'' who became a ''cold-blooded murderess'' after
repeated run-ins with the family of Donna ''Dee Dee'' Morris.
In a statement to police after her arrest, Miss Morris said the
child's mother and brother had called her vulgar names.
A neighbor discovered Dee Dee's body in the washroom of a burned-out
apartment in unincorporated Broward on May 19, 1981. Police said the
girl had been beaten in the head and chest, and stabbed through the
chest with a piece of plexiglass.