Raashanai J. Coley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Police were for a report of an unresponsive child. Eleven year old Raashanai was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead later that night at Vista East Medical Center. Raashanai weighed only 60 pounds.  Doctors reported malnutrition, old scarring and bruises. An autopsy ruled she died from a torn stomach as a result of blunt force trauma. Raashanai’s mother Nicholette Lawrence told investigators she had struck her daughter in the stomach earlier that week. A preliminary autopsy showed the punch went all the way to her spine and caused a tear in the stomach.

 

Lawrence had two other children, both with a different man, who also lived in her home. Neighbors reported seeing those two children but not Raashanai. Less than three months before Raashanai's death, Waukegan police investigated an anonymous complaint of child abuse in the home. Officers left minutes later, not finding any evidence of a problem. Interviews and records show they never saw Raashanai, wrote a report or followed up, despite earlier domestic disturbances, evictions and child abuse complaints involving the family.

 

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services wasn't notified about that complaint, but in July 2013 the agency received a hotline call about the family. DCFS did not investigate the tip further, though it found credible evidence two years earlier that Raashanai's stepfather had abused her. Police arrested him in August 2011 for allegedly beating her when the family lived elsewhere in town. Swollen faced and timid, Raashanai told a Waukegan officer her stepfather hit her almost daily for no reason, according to a police report.

 

In December 2002, while pregnant with Raashanai, Lawrence was arrested in Las Vegas after being accused of driving an underage girl from Oregon to Nevada for prostitution. Lawrence later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor conspiracy to pandering of a child and was placed on probation. Less than one month later, in April 2003, Raashanai was born. 

 Lawrence was charged with first degree murder. Lawrence plead not guilty and was held on $5 million bond, facing life in prison if she is convicted. A trial date of February 2, 2015 was set though a pretrial hearing was set for November 19, 2014.