FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - After eight years since the death of a toddler in Hollywood, there has not been a conviction, but prosecutors are looking to change that.
According to Hollywood Police, Analiz Osceola killed her 3-year-old stepson and reported him missing to try and cover his tracks.
“The defendant fabricated a series of crimes to cover her actions and inaction the night Ahziya Osceola died,” said prosecutor Neva Rainford-Smith.
Years after the death of Ahziya Osceola, Analiz, who is charged with killing him, is finally going to trial.
It is expected to last a few days.
“He will tell you that Ahziya Osceola had a lacerated liver. He will testify that his pancreas had been split in three pieces,” Rainford-Smith said.
Despite those horrific injuries, the boy’s stepmother didn’t call 911. Instead, she reported him missing, which launched a massive hours-long search near the child’s home in Hollywood.
But little Ahziya never left the home, and later that evening, police made an announcement.
“We found the body in the bottom of an 8-inch wide box,” an officer said during a news conference.
The child was badly beaten, and doctors found fentanyl and heroin in his system.
His death, they will testify, took hours.
“She failed to provide any medical attention for this child, telling him only to ‘stop moving, or you’re going to throw up,” Rainford-Smith said
The stepmother’s defense attorney, Bill Cone, said she did not cause the boy’s death, and made the story about him being missing because she was scared she’d lose her other children.
“All she kept saying was, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know. It was too late for Ahziya. I had other kids I had to think about,'” said Cone.
If she is found guilty, she faces 31 years in prison.
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