NEW YORK (PIX11)— A mother is accused of using a broom and an electrical cord to beat her 9-year-old daughter to death during a two-hour attack in their Brooklyn home on Sunday, authorities said Wednesday.
Shemene Cato, 48, was arraigned on Tuesday on multiple charges of murder, manslaughter, assault, weapons, and child endangerment, according to a criminal complaint. Cato also beat her 13-year-old daughter during the attack that began at 8 a.m. Sunday, prosecutors said.
Officers were called to the home on Lincoln Place in Crown Heights around 1 p.m. and found the little girl unconscious and unresponsive with trauma to her body, according to the NYPD. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The girl, in an attempt to escape the attack, crawled under the bed. While Cato tried to pull her out, one of the legs broke and the bed fell on the child’s head, prosecutors allege. The girl suffered multiple blunt force injuries to her head, face, and body and died of internal bleeding, officials said.
Cato was arrested Monday after the medical examiner ruled the girl’s death a homicide. Cato is being held without bail, according to public court records.