Published: August 26, 2006 10:50 am      

Justice for a tortured child?

CHICKASHA — He should have been willing to give his life for his daughter.

Instead, he took her life.

Now James Patrick Malicoat awaits an execution chamber in which the state will attempt to deliver justice to a 13-month-old girl who was tortured to death almost a decade ago.

But there will never be justice for Tessa Leadford.

No death suffered by this murderer could bring equity to the beautiful blonde-haired toddler who loved her father - only to be brutally bitten, beaten, broken and betrayed by him.

On that fateful wintry day, Malicoat’s turbulent torture of his own daughter finally ended her life.

The child had bite marks still healing from painful injuries suffered days before.

Her face was bloodied by fingernails jabbed into her face by a man who violently poked her with his fingers to try to stop the child’s crying which was keeping a father who worked nights from being able to sleep.

Her stomach showed more than 30 fresh and healing bruises from fingers thrust into her body so ferociously that seven ribs were broken and her liver, lungs and a kidney were ruptured.

Her head revealed a soft spot just above her right eye where her skull had been crushed by the force of a blow which caused a hemorrhage in her tiny brain.

After one of the blows stopped the child’s breathing, Malicoat told prosecutors that he “revived” his child. When the child’s vital signs returned, he sought no medical care for the mortally wounded child.

He merely poured some soda into a baby bottle, put the bottle in her mouth and placed her in a playpen near his bed.

Malicoat lay down to sleep.

His child would never awaken.

When Malicoat and the child’s mother found her dead several hours later, they called a family member who told them to seek medical care for the child.

An ambulance arrived and soon after, so did the police.

Both were convicted for their roles in the girl’s death.

The mother, Mary Ann Leadford, was sentenced to life in jail for not protecting her child from the abuse of which she was keenly aware. A Grady County jury took only half an hour to decide the father’s fate.

He is set to die Thursday in McAlester.

District Attorney Bret Burns prosecuted the case. He said death was the only punishment available that fits this crime.

Malicoat has said himself that only his death can atone for his actions.

However, no painless execution can erase the terror his child experienced the last few weeks of her life. No punishment can rectify the pain and suffering her father inflicted on her and her mother allowed.

The child’s death will be avenged when her father - her killer - succumbs to the highest penalty the laws in a civil society allow.

But there can be no justice for Tessa Leadford.