New York Family Law Blog
Authorities continue to search for the missing head of 10-year-old disabled girl, Zahra after a long search revealed her desecrated body, said New York Family Lawyers.
Elise Baker, 42, is accused of abusing, murdering and dismembering the girl’s body, according to NYC Family Lawyer reports. Coroner reports said Zahra died “as a result of undetermined homicidal violence.”
The child’s remains were found spread between two different locations with two different types of tool marks on her bones. The coroner concluded she had died before she was dismembered and that animals had eaten her flesh. There are many cases of abuse which arise in Brooklyn and The Bronx but none as gruesome as this one.
New York Family Lawyers said Elisa Baker had a “history and pattern of physical, verbal and psychological abuse” against the child and that family members accused her of “taking advantage of a position of trust and confidence” in order kill Zahra and then “desecrated her body to hinder detection and prosecution.”
Authorities said details of the child’s death “must be kept close to the investigation and not be discussed in order to protect this case.”
Zahra, who while struggling with cancer, lost a leg and lost most of her hearing, was reported missing in the fall, but police speculate she had disappeared many weeks earlier.
When she was reported missing, her stepmother allegedly issued a phony $1 million reward for her return.
Not long after the search began, authorities found a prosthetic leg matching the description and serial number of Zahra’s. The child reportedly had a very hard life after being abandoned by her biological mother as a baby, struggling with cancer and ending up with an abusive stepmother in the end.
A neighbor said, “Zahra was abused. She was often bruised and was very quiet.”
Before the child’s body was discovered, Elisa Baker had already been indicted for obstructing justice, a charge related to the ransom note and sits in jail awaiting trial.
A few weeks before authorities found the remains, Elisa Baker wrote in a letter that the child was dead, but showed no remorse. She seemed to feel sorrier for herself, said a New York Family Lawyer, while she made vague accusations about her husband doing something “horrifying” to Zahra after she was dead.
Baker’s attorney called this accusation “a desperate attempt at distraction.”
Murder charges against a child are as serious as it gets. New York Family Attorneys will help you weather the storm. NY Family Attorneys will examine the evidence and defend you to the best of our ability.