Man 'obsessed with toilet training beat his two-year-old daughter to death for having an accident - then told police she had been kidnapped'
•D'Andre Lane, 32, is charged with child abuse in the disappearance of Bianca Jones
•Bianca has been missing since December 2 when Lane reported her stolen during a carjacking
•Prosecutors claim Lane beat her with a stick wrapped in a towel after she wet herself
Detroit man was so obsessed over toilet training that he fatally beat his 2-year-old daughter for having an accident, a prosecutor said on Wednesday in an opening statement to jurors at the man's first-degree murder trial.
D'Andre Lane, 32, charged with child abuse in the Dec. 2 disappearance of Bianca Jones, whose body has never been found, has maintained his innocence insisting she was taken during a carjacking.
The car was found less than an hour later, but the girl wasn't in it.
Prosecutors now claim that Lane, who has fathered seven children with seven women, beat Bianca to death with a stick with a towel wrapped in duct tape, before disposing of her body.
His admittance to police of having spanked the child for wetting herself, amplified prosecutor’s claims.
'He believed that if 2-year-olds had accidents they should be physically punished,' Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Carin Goldfarb told jurors. 'The defendant staged a carjacking to cover up the death of his baby.'
Lane put the child's body in the car the next day as he was going to take an older daughter and a nephew to school, Goldfarb said.
'The defendant staged a carjacking to cover up the death of his baby,' the prosecutor said.
Defense attorney Terry Johnson has said prosecutors have no evidence against Lane and their 'case is based on the argument that he spanked her.'
Johnson told the jury there was no evidence of physical harm and that while Lane may have hit the girl with a stick, it had a protective cover to prevent harm.
Johnson also said Lane was distraught at the disappearance of his daughter and cooperated with police.
'They want to paint him as the embodiment of evil,' said Johnson. The defense lawyer told jurors that prosecutors are asking them to take a 'leap of faith' and convict Lane.
[...]
During their search efforts last winter, D'Andre Lane had begged the public’s help finding his daughter - a plea that inspired dozens of volunteers to comb some of the city's roughest neighbourhoods in early December.
'Please, please don't stop looking,' he said on December 8.
‘We love her and we want her home,’ Biana's mother Banika Jones had said during their hunt. ‘Bianca, Mommy has lots and lots of gingerbread men for you when you get home.’
Asked about the girl's relationship with the father, the mother said at the time: ‘I know he probably wants to see Bianca home as much as I do ... He's never been anything but loving and committed to her.'
Lane has been charged with first-degree child abuse and murder during a felony, which carries a mandatory punishment of life in prison
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