A woman has told how her five-year-old granddaughter was beaten to death with a toy boat she had made in Sunday School, while her mum just watched. Little Kati Earnest was just five when she was killed by her mother’s boyfriend, Tommy Castro, who a jury took just eight minutes to convict of murder.
Kati’s mother Kristina Earnest was also convicted in relation to the killing. She was initially jailed for 50 years after pleading guilty to causing injury to a child by omission but this was subsequently reduced to 18 years.
Now her 48-year-old gran Shelley Flatt-Blevins – the mother of Earnest’s ex-boyfriend Nelson Cardwell Junior – has spoken of her sorrow. She told how her granddaughter was so badly hurt in the attack her spleen split in two.
But Earnest did not intervene. She later told lawyers she thought it would make the “beating” worse for her young daughter.
Speaking publicly for the first time since Kati’s death in 2009, Mrs Flatt-Blevins, who lost her son, Kati’s father, to a gun accident last year, said: “On July 5, 2009, I received a call that will haunt me forever.
“They said ‘It’s the police – we’ve got bad news’.
“An officer then told me Kati had died.”
Mrs Flatt-Blevins, went to the hospital near Kati’s home in Vernon, Texas, and learnt Earnest was claiming her daughter had drowned in the bathtub.
“But according to police Kati had bruises on her face,” she recalled. “When Kristi was asked about this she said, ‘She was bullied at nursery’.
“I knew then she was lying – it sounded suspicious.
“Nelson was there and we wept.”
A few days later both Earnest and a man called Tommy Castro, her new boyfriend, were arrested on suspicion of Kati’s murder.
Mrs Flatt-Blevins continued: “I learnt from police that an autopsy on Kati’s body indicated she’d died of blunt force trauma and hadn’t drowned.
“I then learnt that Kristi had confessed to her own daughter’s murder. I felt sick thinking about my precious little granddaughter.
“I couldn’t understand how a mother could kill her own child, especially one as lovely as Kati. It didn’t make any sense.”
But it was during the court hearing at Wilbarger County Court in May 2010 that Mrs Flatt-Blevins learnt the true terror her granddaughter had endured.
She said: “Nelson and I were in court to watch Kristi, who was then 23, plead guilty to a charge of causing injuryto a child by omission.
“The court accepted this plea because they felt her first confession was false, suspected she’d been lured into admitting murder by Castro.
“During the court hearing I learnt that she’d stood by and watched while evil Castro viciously beat Kati black and blue.
“The judge jailed her for 50 years but the worst was yet to come – Castro’s trial.”
Mrs Flatt-Blevins and her son returned to the same court for his trial in October 2011.
She said: “I sat in court and watched that monster as he told lie after lie about Kati. He denied killing her, said he was suffering from kidney stones when she died and was ‘out of it’.
“He called Kati ‘disrespectful,’ and a ‘liar,’ when he took to the stand.
The court was told how on July 4, 2009, the day Kati died, Castro accused her of wetting herself in his pride and joy, a Mazda sports car.
As punishment he beat her repeatedly with a wooden boat she’d made in Sunday school.
Castro hit her on her stomach with the boat, punched her in the stomach with his fist, and eventually stepped on her abdomen with his full weight.
Mrs Flatt-Blevins continued: “Medical evidence demonstrated Kati was choked by Castro too.
“The severe beating damaged her internal organs. He then made her carry out military exercises – exercises meant for grown men.
“It was dreadful. She must have suffered. And all the time her mum watched and did nothing.
“The court was told that later that she said, ‘I feel sick’, before vomiting. She then got in the bath and died.
“She was killed by the people who were meant to care for her.”
Castro, then 43, of Texas, was found guilty of murder and jailed for life.
Earnest’s sentence was reduced to 18 years. Mrs Flatt-Blevins said: “It was decided by the court she had also been beaten by Castro, was a victim too.
“I don’t agree and think she should never be freed. As Kati's mother, it was her job to protect her.
“Not only did she not protect her she stood there and watched him beat Kati to death. She didn't raise a finger to help her poor daughter.”
“Now I’m struggling on. I miss Kati and Nelson everyday, she said.
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