Nov 14, 2007 3:37 pm US/Eastern
Woman Convicted In 1990 Murder Of Her Daughter
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) ―
Seventeen years after a 4-year-old girl was killed, and more than a decade after her skeletal remains were found in woods off the Long Island Expressway, a jury on Wednesday convicted the child's mother of the murder.
Khairual Abdul, 43, was found guilty of depraved indifference murder in the killing of Jennifer Shafiq by a jury in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead following a six-week trial; deliberations began on Tuesday.
Authorities say Abdul and her husband were living in Queens in 1990 when Jennifer was beaten to death and then buried in a shallow grave in Manorville, about 70 miles from Manhattan. The little girl was found wearing a sleeveless dress and a T-shirt with the slogan, "My Heart Belongs to Grandma."
Abdul, who shrugged but showed little other emotion when the verdict was read, faces 25 years to life when she is sentenced Dec. 12.
Her estranged husband, Parmjit Singh, 48, also has been charged in the child's death and will be tried at a later date. Each spouse has blamed the other in the little girl's abuse.
"She was tortured," said Assistant District Attorney Kerri Kelly. "The only joy she had in her life was during her stay in foster care. This is a life that ended all too soon, at age 4."
Jennifer's remains were discovered in 1996 by a hiker walking through the woods near the far eastern edge of the Long Island Expressway, but the parents -- who had moved to Sacramento, Calif., before eventually splitting up -- weren't arrested until March 2006.
That's when Suffolk homicide detectives got a call from police in Sacramento who said Singh, who they had picked up on domestic violence charge, was implicating his estranged wife in the killing of their daughter. Singh allegedly told detectives that his wife killed the child following months of abuse by shaking her violently and smashing her to the floor.
Kelly said Abdul made a statement to police shortly after her arrest, claiming the child had fallen backward, hit her head and then showed symptoms of a seizure before dying.
Abdul's attorney, Mary-Beth Abbate, said her client was not guilty of the killing and was herself the victim of Singh's abuse. During the trial, Abbate suggested that the remains found in 1996 were not Jennifer's.
County Court Judge C. Randall Hinrichs rejected a request to allow reports on other missing children to be introduced at the trial to bolster the attorney's claim. Kelly countered that DNA found in the child's bones was linked to Abdul. The prosecutor also said the child had suffered numerous broken bones and showed other symptoms of abuse.
She also said the "My Heart Belongs to Grandma" shirt was a hand-me-down from the foster family that had cared for the child for more than three years. Jennifer was placed in foster care when she was only about a month old after her mother failed to pick her up from a baby sitter, Kelly said.
Jennifer was returned to Abdul in May 1990; the child died in December of that year, Kelly said.
Abbate did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment on the verdict.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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