Jyniah Te Awa. Photo / Supplied
A babysitter who this week pleaded guilty to murdering a 10-month-old baby has also admitted hanging her on the back of a wardrobe door and leaving her in a closed freezer.
The cruel abuse emerged when Tiana Mary-Anne Kapea was arrested. It has shocked police, who say that
baby Jyniah Te Awa would have suffered miserably at her caregiver's hands.
"I don't know what her cognitive ability would have been but she was yelled at, she was screamed at - babies react to that and she would have been scared," one officer told the Weekend Herald.
Kapea is in custody awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to murder and cruelty to a child in the High Court at Auckland on Wednesday.
As she made her pleas, she struggled to say the word "guilty" and began crying as she stood with her head bowed.
But as far as Jyniah's family are concerned, any suffering Kapea feels is nothing compared with what they are going through.
Under her mother's care Jyniah had been a thriving baby. Doctors who had seen her for checkups and immunisations described her as "interactive", "well nourished" and a "delightful baby girl".
"She wasn't crazy," said Jyniah's mother, Lisa Cassidy, said of Kapea. "She was on to it and knew what she was doing. It just comes down to 'why' and 'how could you'. Every time she used to drop baby off she used to kiss her and say 'love you'."
Miss Cassidy's eyes fill with tears eyes as she remembers the good times with her daughter. The way the same lock of hair would always fall over Jyniah's forehead, the way she loved having a "ponytail flower" on top of her head and the noise she used to make kissing her mum on the cheek.
After her body was released from the coroner, Miss Cassidy wrapped her daughter in her favourite blankets and carried her around, the way she had always done. For the grieving mother it was a way to hold on to to her precious daughter one last time.
"It's been a devastating road. I wouldn't wish it on anybody but her," she says, referring to Kapea. "She thinks jail is bad - try living without your baby for the rest of your life."
