A TEENAGER raped, tortured and killed his partner's 14-month-old baby girl in a jealous rage because he wanted his girlfriend to stop drinking.
The 19-year-old Palm Islander, who cannot be named for legal reasons, yesterday faced Cairns Supreme Court charged with the murder and torture in a Westcourt unit on January 15 last year. In a harrowing video-taped police interview shown to the jury, the teen admitted to killing the infant because he was "angry". Asked if he thought what he had done was wrong, he replied: "Yeah, she was just a baby". "I know it was wrong. I'll go to jail for a long time." In the police interview he demonstrated to officers how he attacked the girl in a sustained 20 minute attack. "She didn't listen to me." The court heard the baby girl had 18 individual bruises to her abdomen, a broken face, and severe bruising. She died due to the repeated blows to the stomach, a post-mortem examination found. The girl's mother, 18, gave evidence how she came home after a short outing to the shops to find the teen sitting on the couch in his underwear watching television. She told how she found her dying baby lying on the bed. Paramedics were called to a unit at Curtin St about 10.30pm on January 15 after reports the baby was in distress. She was taken to Cairns Base Hospital but died just before midnight. The teen, who is expected to plea to the charges today, told police his de-facto was screaming at him. "She was calling me a rapist. "She was broken."
