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Documents List Items Police Think Pair Used To Beat Tot

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 3, 2008

LARGO - Police think 4-year-old Zineah Taylor Johnson was beaten with several objects covered with duct tape -- including an electrical cord, a spatula and possibly a coat hanger — before her grandfather and her grandfather's girlfriend took her lifeless body to Northside Hospital in August.

Those details are contained in court documents unsealed this week after Johnson's grandfather, Sylvester Carew, 54, and his girlfriend, Nikki Tyler Gardner-Bradley, 37, were transferred from a Hillsborough County jail to a Pinellas County jail on Tuesday.

Each is accused of killing the girl; each is being held without bail on one count of first-degree murder.

The pair took the girl to Northside Hospital on Aug. 16, court records state, but Zineah already was dead. Carew blamed Gardner-Bradley and Gardner-Bradley blamed Carew when asked what had happened.

An autopsy on the 33-pound child revealed she had more than 100 injuries on her head, neck, torso and legs, with some wounds fresh and others at various ages of the healing process, the court records state.

In a search of the Largo apartment where the three were living – 11446 137th St. N., Apt. C309 – investigators found the instruments they think repeatedly were used to beat the child, the court documents state.

They found an electrical cord modified with a handle and duct tape "that appeared consistent with having been used to inflict many of the injuries" on the girl's body, the court documents state. They also found a spatula wrapped in duct tape and a rigid sticklike object, possibly a broken hanger, with duct tape on one end, the documents state.

Several belts thought to have been used on the child also were confiscated.

It has been reported that the girl had a traumatic brain injury and malnutrition. The court records also say she had pneumonia.

The couple had had custody of Zineah since the end of 2006 through an informal arrangement between Carew and Carew's daughter, who was Zineah's mother. When reached recently, Zineah's mother declined to comment.

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