An Arapahoe County District Court judge ruled today that an Aurora woman is competent to stand trial in the death of her 3-year-old daughter.
Susie Ida Quartey, 34, who is being held on $500,000 bond, appeared in court today to hear additional charges filed against her.
Quartey already had been charged with sex assault on a child and second-degree assault with a deadly weapon. Today, based on the county coroner’s report that the child’s death was a homicide, prosecutors charged her with child abuse, knowingly and recklessly causing death and tampering with a witness or victim.
If convicted, Quartey faces a possible 48 year prison sentence on the child-abuse charge.
Quartey was arrested in April after calling 911 from her home to report that her daughter, Jolyn Torpoh, had stopped breathing. Police said the girl was battered repeatedly with pieces of a metal towel rack and a coat hanger before she died.
Quartey, a native of Ghana, told police she was carrying the child on her back, wrapped in traditional African cloths, when she and her daughter fell together onto rocks in the family’s backyard.
Her next court hearing is scheduled for June 26.
