Woman sentenced for murdering 3-year-old boy

Nadera Batson. Credit: PPD

Nadera Batson, 25, was sentenced Wednesday 28 to 57 years in prison on charges that she tortured her 3-year-old godson to death.

Batson, who was convicted of third degree murder in August, let Jaquinn Brewton move into her home in 2011 after his mother moved into a homeless shelter with three of her other children.

Over the next three months Batson tortured the child, for example by burning his buttocks with a kitchen blow torch in punishment for failing to properly use the potty, according to testimony at trial. She also poured boiling liquids on his feet causing second-degree burns and swelling that prevented him from walking.

Batson’s live-in boyfriend Marcus King pled guilty to third-degree murder charges and testified against Batson, saying that he rarely struck Jaquinn but that Batson did every day.

Other instruments of abuse Batson used reportedly included her fists, belts, shoes, a wooden hairbrush and a metal hair pick that she dragged across his skin.

Batson called 911 on June 29, 2011, after Jaquinn, who weighed 32 pounds and was speech-impaired, collapsed. He was found by first responders in full arrest in the hallway of Batson’s rooming house in West Philadelphia and was hospitalized at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Jaquinn died two weeks later due to pancreatic laceration, caused by blows to his stomach which were equal in force to a car accident, experts testified at Batson’s trial. His spleen was also lacerated.

According to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott noted at sentencing that 99 out of 100 Philadelphians would agree that Batson’s actions were pure evil.

King is awaiting sentencing.