Hobart Police Capt. Nick Wardrip testified Tuesday that cops found a couple of things inside a Gary home that showed Zakira Porter beat her then-8-year-old daughter with an extension cord.
When investigators executed a search warrant at the home on the 3900 block of Louisiana Street in Gary, they found three extension cords. One stained cord was tested at an Indiana State Police lab and came back with one person’s DNA, he said. Prosecutors said earlier it was the child’s.
In an empty bedroom where the girl said she was beaten, there appeared to be red or brown stains or splatters on the wall and floor, he said. Wardrip said police did not test it, since the results came back on the cord. They also found a child’s stained top, and a Minnie Mouse backpack in the home that appeared to have possible blood stains on the front.
Porter, 38, of Crown Point and formerly Gary, is charged with aggravated battery, neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury, battery resulting in serious bodily injury and battery on a person less than 14 years old.
The trial is expected to wrap Tuesday. Porter is being tried in absentia after she refused to leave her jail cell.
When Porter was pulled over and arrested as a suspect in an unrelated gas station shooting, on May 27, 2022, cops noticed her daughter had welts and other signs of possible abuse all over her. They opened a separate investigation.
Earlier Tuesday, Indiana Department of Child Services caseworker LaTasha Richardson on cross-examination told defense lawyer Sonya Scott-Dix that the child had not been around her father in the timeframe before cops saw her injuries at the police station.
Porter gave an old address to the cops. Richardson said she took the child back to the Louisiana Street home to verify that’s where she lived.
After the police station, the child was taken to St. Mary’s Hospital in Hobart.
“I noticed her limping,” a triage nurse told jurors Tuesday.
The girl had obvious marks on her arms and welts “in different stages of healing,” she said.
The child herself testified Monday that only Porter beat her when she got angry if she didn’t know an answer as she was homeschooled.
Deputy Prosecutors Michelle Jatkiewicz and Chris Bruno are prosecuting. The case is before Judge Salvador Vasquez.
mcolias@post-trib.com
