Sentencing set in murder of infant girl

A 20-year-old Spokane man is to be sentenced Dec. 16 for murdering his infant daughter before she was a month old.

Casey Allen Biotti pleaded guilty last week to second-degree murder in a plea bargain in which a charge of homicide by abuse was reduced and a second-degree child-rape charge was dismissed.

Biotti had been charged with child rape because the baby’s mother, Tasha Jones, was 13 when the child was conceived. Biotti was 17 at the time.

Jones publicly defended Biotti when their baby, Angela Biotti, died Dec. 8, 2002. Both parents initially denied doing anything to harm the infant, who was born Nov. 4, 2002.

However, court documents say Biotti later admitted a pattern of abuse that led to the skull fracture that killed the baby.

In addition to the skull fracture, an autopsy revealed several broken ribs in various stages of healing and two internal hemorrhages.

Biotti said he was in the habit of kicking and shaking the infant’s bassinette and dropping her into it from a height of two feet when he was angry that she was crying.

Biotti said he also pressed on the baby’s chest and bear-hugged her when he was frustrated.

In an effort to quiet the child, Biotti told police, he would bounce her on his legs so hard that her head would hit his kneecaps. If she didn’t quit crying, he would bounce her faster until “she’d go cross-eyed,” Biotti told police.

He said he was so frustrated two or three days before the baby died that he “went to just throw her in her crib,” but the child’s head struck a window ledge while he was still holding her.

Biotti said the blow about 7:30 a.m. was so loud that it woke up Tasha Jones, who was sleeping in the same room.

Jones told authorities she remembered being awakened by a loud thump. She said she asked Biotti what happened, and he said, “Nothing.” Then he climbed into bed and went to sleep.

What actually happened, Biotti told police, is that Angela “went cross-eyed” and had to catch her breath.

It took her 15 seconds before she cried again, and she cried until she passed out, Biotti said.

He said the child slept all the next day and then alternated between vomiting and sleeping until she died.

Biotti faces a standard-range sentence of 10 1/4 to 18 1/3 years in prison when Superior Court Judge Robert Austin sentences him. Deputy Prosecutor Ed Hay agreed to recommend a 12 1/2 -year prison term.