Grisly Testimony in 20-Year-Old Slay Case

N E W   Y O R K, Oct. 10, 2000 -- A woman testified today that her mother andolder brother beat her 3-year-old sister to death before entombingthe body in a bedroom closet — a macabre secret the Brooklyn familykept for two decades.

“I see both of them as devils,” Sabrina Yaw, 30, said at thenon-jury murder trial in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn.

Asked by prosecutors to expose the family’s dark past, Yawrecalled seeing Madeline Carmichael, 61, and her son, GregoryCarmichael, 38, “standing over the child and beating the child.”The victim, she added, “screamed in pain, like a child hurtingreal bad” before the toddler dropped dead in a Brownsvilleapartment.

Dark Family SecretThe defendants have pleaded innocent to second-degree murdercharges alleging they killed Latanisha Carmichael in front of hertwin brother and Yaw, then 9, in November 1979 after the abusivesingle parent became enraged that the victim had vomited.

The pair allegedly wrapped the diapered body in plastic andstashed it in a trunk filled with mothballs to cover the odor. Itremained there for the next 20 years.

The defendants told any outsiders who asked about Latanisha thatshe was in a foster home, or had “moved south,” prosecutor BarrySchreiber said. When Sabrina asked, she was beaten into a lastingsilence, he said.

“This bizarre and unthinkable murder and its cover-up became adeep, dark family secret,” Schreiber said in opening statements.

Schreiber said that the crime might never surfaced ifLatanisha’s surviving twin, Andre — who had no memory of the victim — hadn’t contacted an aunt last year. The aunt startled him byasking if he was in touch with his twin.

That prompted Andre to confront Sabrina, who revealed the secretand agreed to go to police. Armed with a search warrant, detectivesfound the trunk in the mother’s closet last November.

Accidental Death or Faulty MemoryDefense attorneys suggested the death was an accident. Theyclaimed the murder case was solely built on the faultychildhood memories of Sabrina, and that an autopsy wasinconclusive.

Madeline Carmichael’s attorney has accused prosecutors of“demonizing” his client in the media, forcing the defense to askfor a non-jury trial.

“When the shock, the hatred and the prejudice is stripped awayfrom this case, we are going to find a horrified, single mother whomakes a terrible decision” to cover up a tragedy, said theattorney, Joshua Horowitz.

Yaw calmly recounted a harrowing history fraught with fear,denial and beatings with extension cords.

Grisly DiscoveryThe witness described seeing the trunk with her sisters’mummified remains packed up with “beds, lamps and [a] table” when thefamily moved to a new apartment, where it was locked in a closet.

One day, Yaw and Andre “were playing and I decided we weregoing to go into the closet,” Yaw said. “He thought his toys werehidden in the closet, but I knew what was in there.” When themother caught them, she received a severe beating “for beingnosy,” she added.

Carmichael — confined to a wheelchair because of failing health— and her son had no visible reaction.

On cross-examination, Sabrina admitted she has stayed in touchwith her jailed mother. She also testified she named the oldest ofher six children Madeline after her mother delivered the child athome.

Gregory Carmichael’s attorney, Jeff Adler, attacked Yaw’scredibility by bringing up her own domestic discord, includingcharges she once threatened to kill her husband. He accused Yaw ofnot coming forward sooner “because you never saw [the defendants]beat her. … The truth of the matter is you don’t know whathappened.”

Yaw shot back: “I know what happened. And I’m not going to sithere and have you tell me I didn’t.”