Neighbor testifies in death of 3-year-old

Neighbor testifies of beating sounds in death of boy, 3

Just before he was beaten to death, a 3-year-old boy apologized to the woman charged with repeatedly striking him for making noise in the early-morning hours, a neighbor testified at a preliminary hearing yesterday for Alethia McKee.

“I heard, ‘You woke me up’ and a lot of hitting,” said Major Best, a resident of the Tioga apartment building where Quazier Davis was fatally beaten in August.

“The last thing the child said was, ‘I apologize for playing with my toys at this hour of the morning,’ ” Best testified. “He could barely even say it. I was like, ‘Somebody’s gotta do something.’ ”

McKee is charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child. At yesterday’s hearing, Municipal Court Judge Nazario Jimenez Jr. ordered her held over for arraignment Jan. 18.

McKee, 26, who also goes by the name Aulexus Wingate, was a friend of the Davis family who regularly cared for Quazier. The two were so close that the boy called her “Grandma.”

Prosecutors said that about 4 a.m. Aug. 23, McKee became furious at Quazier for playing with his toys. They said she began berating the child and struck him with such force that it awakened Best, who lived two doors down the hall.

Best called police, and two officers soon arrived to investigate the disturbance. After entering McKee’s apartment, they asked her about the noise.

She explained that her screams were the result of loud sex with her boyfriend, who was also Quazier’s maternal grandfather. The officers checked on the boy, who was sitting in a bathtub and appeared fine.

“The mortal wound to the child was internal, and he was sitting upright in the tub with his back to the officers,” who could not see any bruising, Assistant District Attorney John Carle said after the hearing.

The officers had received a report of a woman screaming and knew nothing about the child beating, Carle said.

Shortly before 11 the next morning, paramedics were called to a playground at 20th and Estaugh Streets, where Quazier was found limp and unresponsive on the ground.

McKee told police the boy had injured himself in a fall off the jungle gym. But witnesses maintained Quazier had not been playing there, and the playground had padded turf to prevent serious injuries.

An autopsy later revealed that Quazier died from multiple blunt injuries that ruptured his liver and caused abdominal hemorrhaging. In a later interview, Detective Ramon Carrasquillo asked McKee whether she had hit the boy.

“Yes,” McKee answered in a statement Carasquillo read aloud in court. “I whipped his ass.”