This is an Outrageous and Sad news for me. Every time i heard a children has been murder, died or sexually abuse; make me sad and see how easy we forget our Values, Humanity, respect and dignity for the Children's. Why children's has to paid for the poor judgement of the parents. They were more concerns about their life than a poor child.

Man Convicted of Killing 2-Year-Old Smoked Crack While She Died.

A man who beat and scalded his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter, then smoked crack and played video games while she died, was sentenced today in San Diego to five years and eight months in state prison.

Rodney Jeffcoat, 45, of Riverside, was convicted Nov. 14 of involuntary manslaughter, assault on a child likely to produce great bodily injury, conspiracy to obstruct justice and assault and battery.

Jurors acquitted him of second-degree murder and assault on a child under 8 causing death, which could have sent Jeffcoat to prison for 25 years to life.

According to court testimony, Jeffcoat whipped and knocked Kenvesia Blount's head against a wall and threw boiling water on her because she wet the bed while she and her mother, Trevesia Blount, 28, of San Diego, were visiting his mother's Riverside home on July 23, 2006.

Jeffcoat then played video games and smoked crack while Blount sat in a chair next to her comatose daughter for one to three days, hoping the child would recover.

The couple didn't seek help because he didn't want to get arrested for driving on a suspended license and she was concerned Child Protective Services would take Kenvesia and her older daughter Alexandria away.

They finally drove the girl to a hospital in San Diego after her mother found maggots on her.

They told authorities the girl scalded herself in San Diego by knocking a pot of boiling water for hot dogs from the stove onto herself.

"Everybody was concerned with themselves and not concerned with this child," Judge Peter Deddeh said. "It makes me angry (that) this child died when she didn't have to die."

Deputy District Attorney Harrison Kennedy told jurors that Jeffcoat began abusing Kenvesia after he started dating her mother in December 2005.

Alexandria Blount testified that Jeffcoat hurt her sister by knocking her head against a wall and pouring boiling water on her.

Trevesia Blount pleaded guilty to felony child abuse and was sentenced last week to 12 years in prison.

The judge noted with frustration that although Jeffcoat was more responsible for the girl's death, because of the plea agreement and sentencing requirements, her sentence had to be harsher than his.

Today in court, Kennedy said the case was one of the most egregious homicides imaginable.
"It simply does not get much worse than that," the prosecutor told the judge.

Deddeh noted that a defense expert said, "you're joking," when the circumstances of the child's death were explained to him.

The judge said the actions of the defendants were "awful, uncaring and insensitive."

"No one could have written a story like this," he said.

Deddeh said the case "pulled on everybody's heart strings," including his.

He said Jeffcoat had a "long and storied record of violence" including a felony conviction in 2004.

Defense attorney Jack Hochman told Deddeh that Jeffcoat's maximum punishment should have been four years and eight months behind bars, but the judge imposed an extra year in prison for a separate assault on the child.

Hochman said the case will be appealed because Deddeh had no legal authority to make a factual finding that Jeffcoat assaulted the child on a separate occasion