Mom blames boyfriend in girl’s death

Joan Richards told a Spokane County Superior Court jury Monday that her 2-year-old daughter would still be alive if she hadn’t reconciled with Robert L. Doney Jr. after kicking him out of her apartment.

Doney, 29, is on trial for first-degree murder in the beating death of Richard’s daughter, Victoria Ramon, on Dec. 26, 2003.

Richards, 36, said she had known Doney since 1998 and allowed him to move into her apartment at 1412 W. Dean in August 2003. She said she kicked him out on Dec. 1 that year when he choked her in a drunken rage and threatened to kill her and her daughter.

Doney was jealous because she was playing Mexican music and her daughter is half Hispanic, Richards said. She said he broke her CDs and directed an ethnic slur toward the toddler.

About a week later, Richards said, she relented when Doney “promised that he loved us and would never hurt us.” He promised never to be drunk around them again, she added.

“I was dumb and stupid about a lot of things when I look back,” Richards testified tearfully. “I should have left him, and my daughter would still be alive.”

Richards said Doney got angry on Christmas evening when an old boyfriend called to say he still loved her. Also, she testified, Doney overheard her sister call him “a fat woman-beater” in a telephone conversation.

Doney ripped the telephone cord out of the wall, Richards said.

She said she had to go to a neighbor’s apartment to call police when Doney threatened her the next morning. Richards said her daughter, who was afraid of Doney, had gone to another room and wouldn’t come when she called the girl.

Richards said she didn’t think Doney would hurt the child, so she left without the girl. But Doney stuck his head out a window and yelled, “I’m going to kill your baby,” Richards testified.

She said she heard sounds “like a tornado, like things were being thrown around.” Doney had locked her out of the apartment when she ran back, Richards said, adding that she heard her daughter crying.

Then, she said, Doney left the apartment, calling her a vulgar name and telling her, “I killed your baby and you’re next.”

Richards rejected all efforts by defense attorney Tim Trageser to shift blame to her. Doney’s defense is that Richards was an abusive mother who killed her daughter, perhaps in frustration because the child was ill.

“I love my daughter,” Doney testified. “I never hurt her.”

Under questioning by Trageser, Richards acknowledged Monday that she was pregnant at the time with Doney’s baby. She said she couldn’t remember how long the two of them had known about the pregnancy.

No other information about the pregnancy was revealed in court, although Trageser contended in his opening statement that Richards was uncooperative in a subsequent investigation by Child Protective Services.

An alternate juror was dismissed last week after remarking that a delay might have been caused by Doney accepting a plea bargain. The only remaining alternate was promoted Monday when a regular juror said he no longer felt impartial.

The juror went to work Friday while the trial was in recess, and a co-worker who was reading a newspaper account of the trial exclaimed that Doney had beaten the co-worker’s wife. The juror said he trusted the co-worker and found his remark credible.