Trial’s end approaches in death of ex-GI’s tot

Jurors will hear closing arguments Tuesday morning in the first death penalty case to go to trial in Hawaii.

There is no death penalty under state law.

The trial is happening in federal court.

Former Schofield Barracks soldier Naeem Williams is on trial for capital murder for the July 16, 2005, child abuse beating death of his 5-year-old daughter, Talia. He is facing the death penalty for two charges.

One is for causing the death of a child through child abuse. The other is for causing the death of a child as part of a practice and pattern of assault and torture.

His lawyers presented evidence challenging only the charge of murder through child abuse and are already anticipating a guilty verdict to at least one of the capital offenses. They withdrew a witness who would have presented evidence of Williams’ mental capacity from trial in favor of presenting him to the jurors during the penalty phase.

Williams, 34, testified that he beat his daughter almost every day, first with a plastic ruler, then a belt or his fist, for nearly the entire seven months Talia Williams lived with him and her stepmother, Delilah, in Hawaii. He also testified that his was the blow that felled her.

The Honolulu medical examiner who performed Talia’s autopsy said Talia Williams died from a head injury she suffered after her father hit her and she fell, hitting the back of her head on the concrete floor of the family’s home at Wheeler Army Airfield.

Three defense medical experts testified, however, that the girl died from injuries she could have sustained in a beating 17 days before her death.

Delilah Williams, 30, testified that she stomped on the child and slammed her head into a wall on June 29, 2005. She pleaded guilty in 2006 to killing her through assault and torture in exchange for a 20-year prison term.

In addition to the two capital murder offenses, Naeem Williams is facing charges that he conspired with his wife to assault and torture the girl, and that he obstructed justice and lied to investigators.

He and Delilah Williams testified that they both knew and were usually pres­ent when the other one beat the child.

Naeem Williams also testified that he wiped his daughter’s blood off her bedroom walls before his wife called 911 and that he initially told Army investigators that the girl hit her head when she fell in the shower.

Should jurors find Williams guilty of at least one of the capital murder charges, they will return to U.S. District Court to decide whether he deserves the death penalty for killing his daughter.