Takeya Bryant

        An 11-year-old Northside boy was found guilty of killing his little sister Monday, but officials now must figure out where to incarcerate him.

        Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Sylvia Hendon said Ohio law provides no facility for offenders his age who commit such horrific crimes.

        In January, a new law lowers the minimum age for placement with the state Department of Youth Services to 10 years from 12. But it isn't retroactive.

        The boy is thought to be one of the youngest people in Hamilton County history to have gone through a juvenile murder trial and found delinquent. He was too young to be tried as an adult and is not being identified because of his age. He could be incarcerated until age 21.

        He stomped and beat to death his 8-year-old sister, Takeya Bryant, on Aug. 15 in their apartment while a 13-year-old cousin baby-sat them. She died from abdominal bleeding and had been sexually assaulted, allegedly by the cousin.

        “Under current law,” Judge Hendon said in her ruling in Hamilton County Juvenile Court, “we don't know where to put him.”

        The second and final day of the boy's case included chilling testimony from Deputy Coroner Daniel Schultz, who said Takeya's autopsy revealed internal “chronic healing” of the abdomen and genitals.

        That showed that the beating that killed her wasn't the first she'd endured, he said. The girl had bruises, old and new, over more than half her body, he testified.

        In first-day testimony last week, a 9-year-old sister gave her account of the beating, which conflicted with the boy's statement to police that he only kneed the girl in the stomach once, and that such roughhousing in the home was fairly frequent.

        The children's mother, African Evans, was at work in Clifton and had left the girl and her siblings in the care of the 13-year-old cousin.

        The cousin faces juvenile charges of murder and rape.

        A competency ruling on him is scheduled for December.

        Judge Hendon called it “the most egregious offense in a defendant this age I've ever seen.”

        As the boy, who turns 12 in May, was led away to the continued custody of county Job and Family Services, he didn't look at his mother, who sobbed uncontrollably. As the judge issued her ruling, Ms. Evans muttered the word “no” repeatedly into a tissue she held against her face.

        Relatives held up the mother as she staggered from the courtroom. “Stand up, African,” one told her. “You gotta stand up.”

        At 11, the boy is too young for Ohio DYS. But the nature of his crime makes placement in the less-secure Hillcrest juvenile detention facility in Springfield Township problematic. The only other legal option is releasing the boy, which the judge said wasn't an option.

        The others his age convicted of similar offenses, the judge recalled, pleaded guilty to lesser homicide charges.

        The judge has until Nov. 13 to determine placement. That's when the boy's 90-day placement in the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services expires. A probation report is due Nov. 6.

        Monday's key testimony was that of Dr. Schultz testifying about microscopic scarring and healing from blunt- force trauma in the same areas Takeya was beaten Aug. 15.

        Takeya died of internal bleeding, with repeated forceful blows to the stomach causing lacerations of several arteries.

        Defense attorney David Montgomery called no witnesses, though in closing argument he maintained the girl's death resulted from roughhousing gone too far.

        That wasn't possible, Dr. Schultz testified to assistant prosecutor Rob Dziech. The judge agreed in explaining her ruling.

        Mr. Montgomery maintained that the punching, kicking and sexual assault that Takeya endured Aug. 15 was a pattern of behavior, and therefore the boy couldn't have recognized the threat of death.

        The boy told Cincinnati police in a taped statement played on the first day of the trial that “I was hitting her with my knee ... only once. She wasn't crying when I kneed her.” But he also said, “I only got in one blow.”

        The judge called the girl's death a failure of the adults in the home, but also the system. Reached after the verdict, Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen said child-neglect charges were not being considered against the mother.

        Outside the courthouse, Ms. Evans, having regained her composure, said “I feel it was an accident. And like she said, the system failed too.”

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