Mom, teen brother ‘finally’ busted a year after 7-year-old Julissia Batties beaten to death
The mother and teen brother of 7-year-old Julissia Batties were arrested Wednesday for allegedly beating her to death in their Bronx home༒ last summer, ending 🐼a nearly year-long wait by the girl’s family for justice to be served.
Navasia Jones, 35, and Paul Fine, Jr., 18, were detained on Wednesday morning and charged with murder and manslaughter for killing Julissia, 🦹who was returned to her mother despite pleas from the helpless little girl.
“I didn’t kill my daughter, bitch,” Jones snapped at a reporter outside the 4♒0th Precinct station house in Mott Haven.
Fine was also charged with sexual abuse for allegedly assaulting his little sister. A police source told The Post the girl’s autopsy revealed that she had been sodomized.
The arrests came as a welcome relief for the girl’s grandmother and forme꧅r caretaker, who has waited nearly one year after the tra🌄gic death for the mother to be held accountable.
“Oh my God, I’ve neve💎r been so happy,” the slain girl’s grandmother Yolanda Davis told The Post. “Oh my God, thank you so much. Oh my God, I really thank him.”
“I’m just so happy I’m getting justice for my granddaughter,” she said. “Oh my God, I’veꦫ never felt so great.”
“I’m going to court, I gotta see this. This, I definitely gotta 🔯se💃e.”
Julissia’s dad Julius Batties, told The Post it was a “great day.”
“I’m extremely happy for this arrest. I can finally start the process of healing,” he said. “It took almost a whole year but it’s here and I’m ready for this process to keep going.”
He added: “I want to thank the det🍰ective and the DA for their hard work.”
Batties later stood outside the 40th Precinct stationhouse🦄 to see his 🌃ex and her teen son led out in handcuffs.
He said the system “definitely failed her first and foremost,” referring to a lack of oversight by the Administration of Children’s Services.
“I miss her every day. I miss her all the time,” he said of his daughter. “I’m her voice and I’m never going to shut up.”
Jones, wearing a white Gucci♒ shirt, black pants and blꦯack boots, denied she killed her daughter while cops escorted her to court.
Both the mother and her son were a🃏rraigned in Bronx c𝄹ourt later on Wednesday afternoon and ordered held without bail.
Prosecuto❀rs revealed horrific details during 🍰the arraignments.
The tiny victim was “sexually assaulted as she was dying,” and had “600 milliliters of blood in her abdomen.” The beatings the girl was subjected to had “enough force for internal organs to tear and bleed,” prosecutors said.
The brother even admitted to⛎ beating the girl while speaking to ꦰinvestigators from ACS.
“Defendant Paul Fine Jr. confessed to ACS that he had assaulted Julissia all over her body in the two-day period for which he is charged,” Assistant District Attorney Camila Sosa said in court.
“He also admitted to both ACS and the police that he punched her multiple times in the face on the day that she was pronounced dead,” Sosa said, “and that he had done so because she had thrown up or stolen snacks.”
She said Fine was accused of “continuing to beat and sexually abuse Julissia as she lay dying.”
Jones’ lawyer, Filaree Moore, had asked the judge that her client be released without bail or on low bail, arguing she didn’t know the girl was in need of care because she isn’t “a medical professional.”
“What the district attorney is describing… punching, wheezing,” Moore argued, “[Jones] didn’t realize there was anything to seek medical attention for.”
But outside the courtroom, the slain girl’s aunt echoed the family’s glee that charges were finally filed in the youngster’s death.
“This part is wonderful,” said Felicia Thomas. “It’s a big relief. I thought this day would never come.”
Glaring at Fine when he was led in, she yelled, “Your ass is grass, mister!”
The tragic girl’s lifeless body — with evidence of trauma all over — was found the morning of Aug. 10, 2021 inside an apartment in the Mitchel Ho🧸uses on Alexander Avenue, cops said.
“Mom and brother are both culpable,” a high-ranking police source said. “They both had a role in it, but who delivered the fatal blow is not clear.”
After the little girl was found dead, the girl’s mom told cops that she fell and hit her head o🔴n a desk.
But the teen brother later admitted that he assaulted his sister before ▨she was found dead in their apꦜartment, police sources told The Post a day after the slaying.
Fine Jr. allegedly admitted during questioning that he had punched his sister eight times in the face when their mother went to the st𝓡ore around 5 a.m., the sources said.
Hours later, 🦄the girl started throwing up and passed out, prompting the 35-year-old mom to call 911.
Batties was rushed to Lincoln Hospital but could not be🌠 saved.
The case was ruled a homicide, cops said. She died of “blun♑t force abdominal trauma,” according to the city med✱ical examiner’s office.
Cops have been called to the apartment in NYCHA’s Mitchel Houses on Alexander Avenue six times over the past three years, according to🐈 source꧟s, who said that on at least one of those occasions, the mother covered for the teen boy.
The last call came in March 2020, sources said.
In a heartbreaking audio recording obtained by The Post, young Julissia cried hysterically and begged her grandmother not to send her for a court-ordered weekend visit with h✤er mom.
Despite her pleas, Julissia was sent to visit her mother, wh🎀o lost custody of the girl at birth, along with four sons, due to alleged negligence and physical abuse.
Against objections by her grandmother and court-appointed lawyer, the city Administration for Childꩵren’s Services last June 21 finally returned Julissia to live with her mother, without supervision, for the first time.
She was killed less than two months later.
