History of child abuse noted before death of girl

Bill Gang

Thursday, April 22, 1999 | 10:49 a.m.

Two weeks before she was shaken to death in 1997, a 2-year-old North Las Vegas girl had suffered a broken leg. But that was only a small part of the torment the girl suffered, Deputy District Attorney Vicki Monroe told a jury Wednesday.

During opening statements at the child-abuse murder trial of Emory Slayden, Monroe told how the girl had been slammed into walls, thrown onto her bed and forced to take cold showers.

Monroe portrayed the 27-year-old North Las Vegas man as a domineering man who had mistreated the children of at least two other girlfriends in the past five years.

Deputy Special Public Defender Peter LaPorta told the jury in District Judge Lee Gates' courtroom that the other children aren't part of the current case and the question is only who killed Yazmine Doram.

He noted that Slayden had finished work and was home just a half-hour before the frantic 911 call seeking help because the girl had stopped breathing. Before that, the girl was with her mother, Sandy Doram.

LaPorta said that if the jurors can determine when the fatal injuries were inflicted, they will learn who was responsible.

In testimony at a preliminary hearing last year in North Las Vegas Justice Court, the girl's mother told of the toddler's last hours.

Doram, 21, said Slayden was angry when he arrived home on Dec. 13, 1997, and took Yazmine into the bathroom with him for a cold shower as punishment for wetting her pants earlier in the day.

The witness said when she entered the bathroom moments later, the girl already was slumped unconscious against the side of the bathtub.

Yazmine stopped breathing a short time later and Slayden called 911, the mother said. The girl was pronounced dead at University Medical Center.