Jury reaches verdict in case of Columbus father charged with murder in young son’s death
After days of deliberation, a Columbus jury has found a father not guilty of murder and child cruelty in the 2016 death of his 4-year-old son.
Authorities had accused 39-year-old Nathaniel Ghant-Washington of severely injuring the child, identified in court records as Nathaniel Washington-Ghant, on July 29, 2012, when the father was charged with first-degree cruelty to children. Police added murder charges after the child died at age 4 on Sept. 23, 2016, allegedly from complications caused by his injuries in 2012.
After closing arguments Monday, the jury began deliberating that afternoon, and continued through Tuesday before announcing it had found Ghant-Washington not guilty of malice murder, meaning jurors decided the father had not intentionally caused his son’s death.
That left two other counts: felony murder, alleging the father killed the boy while committing the felony of first-degree child cruelty, and the child-cruelty charge on which the felony murder count was based.
The jury further deliberated all day Wednesday and much of Thursday before announcing around 1:15 p.m. that it had reached a second verdict, also finding the defendant not guilty on those counts. In total, the deliberations took about 16 hours.
“He’s glad to have finally put this case to rest,” defense attorney Stacey Jackson said afterward of his client, who for years remained free on bond while awaiting trial in his son’s death.
His trial was among the first held in Columbus as the courts resume operations after the COVID-19 lockdown ended jury trials a year ago. Precautions included social distancing in the courtroom and other measures aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
Jurors sat in the courtroom gallery, where usually spectators sit. Spectators were directed to other rooms in the Columbus Government Center, where big-screen TVs showed the 10th floor courtroom proceedings.
Closing arguments
In closing arguments Monday, Jackson told jurors that prosecutors had nothing to prove his client deliberately hurt his son.
“What evidence do you have that he did something to his child?” Jackson asked. He said the prosecution could not show when or how the boy was abused, and based the criminal case on the fact that Ghant-Washington was the last one to care for the boy, before his injuries came to light during a hospital visit.
The child for hours was in others’ care, as his client worked two jobs, and could have been injured then, Jackson said.
“Can’t tell you when, can’t tell you how, can’t tell you by whom,” Jackson said of the prosecutors’ case. He cited standards of proof that say a defendant can’t be convicted solely on “grave suspicion,” or on evidence the suspect only was present when a crime occurred.
“Mere presence is not enough,” Jackson said, calling the accusations nothing more than “conjecture and innuendo.”
Assistant District Attorney Jarrell Schley countered that the father’s claims he tripped and fell atop the child or dropped the boy could not explain the severe injuries doctors discovered.
The son had 15 fractures, including skull fractures to both sides of his head. Physicians said the child’s limbs had been pulled “painfully and forcefully,” she told jurors:
“These were intentional actions. This is not an accident.”
The boy was taken to a Columbus hospital when he stopped eating, and doctors had him flown by helicopter to a children’s hospital in Atlanta. The child lingered in poor health for years, before his death.
The father had faced allegations of abuse before, Schley noted: He was charged with cruelty to children in October 2008 for spanking his daughter so hard she had bruises, and social service workers counseled him on the dangers of beating a child.
A judge dismissed that case for lack of evidence.
“Our criminal justice system moved on from what he had done,” Schley said. But Ghant-Washington should have known then that his actions were abusive, she said.
“He knows the damage he does when he abuses a child,” she told jurors, urging them to set a standard to show that Columbus will not tolerate such abuse.
“We cannot have this disregard for human life in our community,” she said.
This story was originally published March 25, 2021 at 2:49 PM.