CINCINNATI – A father accused of torturing his 2-year-old to death admitted on videotape that he bit the girl on her arms and chest.
But Glen Bates, on trial for aggravated murder and possibly facing the death penalty, claimed that he was only playing with her and not trying to hurt her.
He blamed his girlfriend - the child's mother – for beating her.
On Day 2 of Bates' murder trial Thursday, prosecutors played a recording of Bates' interview with police on March 29, 2015 - the day 2-year-old Glenara Bates was pronounced dead at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
Prosecutors say Bates and Glenara's mother, Andrea Bradley, beat and starved their child to death. Bradley will go on trial later.
Bates sat quietly in the courtroom as the video was played. As to how the toddler's teeth got knocked out, and how she got bruises and cuts all over her body. Bates repeatedly blamed Bradley. He said Bradley often beat the girl with a yellow belt while he was at work.
That contradicted testimony from Glenara's 10-year-old sister on Wednesday. She said she witnessed Glen Bates swing the toddler by the legs and bang her head against a wall until she stopped crying.
During Bates' taped interrogation, Bates said Glenara was often made to sleep in a downstairs bathtub because of a bed-wetting problem. Prosecutors said the tub was filled with feces.
A police officer testified that Glenara looked "very emaciated" when he was called to Children's Hospital. She weighed only 12 pounds when she died, the coroner has said.
"My first impression was I was looking at a 6-month-old," said Bill Gilbert, a 25-year Cincinnati police veteran. "She just looked like an infant, not a 2-year-old toddler."
The Hamilton County coroner, Dr. Lakshmi Sammarco, is scheduled to testify Friday. Sammarco ruled that Glenara died of starvation.
