Jasmine Camp knew her boyfriend had already punched her 12-year-old in the stomach when she started whipping him, she told a jury Thursday, Oct. 20.
Derrick Camp had been bad, Camp said Clarence Brown told her. Derrick, who weighed less than 70 pounds, had taken a packet of jelly to eat without asking permission on June 6, 2020.
Camp, 34, estimated she beat Derrick for 20 to 30 minutes, then turned over the punishment to Brown while she took a bath, she testified.
MORE: Sister tells jury of witnessing brother’s fatal beating
Camp pleaded guilty last month. She was sentenced to life in prison. Brown, 39, has pleaded not guilty. His Richmond County Superior Court trial began Monday.
Camp testified that as she bathed, she heard Derrick continue to scream and cry, as he had when she was beating him. She also heard thumps against the wall that she assumed was Brown throwing Derrick against the walls of their apartment.
“He’s one of the worse (cases of child abuse) I personally have ever seen,” Dr. Kevin Allen of the AU Medical Center testified. He specializes in child abuse cases and was called in to consult after Derrick was brought to the hospital.
Allen went through a series of pictures of Derrick taken at the hospital. The photographs documented all the wounds on the child’s body, literally from the top of his head to the bottom of at least one foot.
There was no way to save Derrick, physicians told the jury this week. The blood flow to Derrick’s brain had been cut off for too long.
Camp testified that she and Brown came to Augusta from Arkansas with her two children, the three children Brown claimed as his own, Brown’s disabled adult sister and seven puppies. They had no jobs waiting, no vehicle and no place to live when they arrived.
They arrived about three months before Derrick died. Camp testified she never enrolled the children in school. She never applied for food stamps. What she earned from a part-time job as a certified nursing assistant and the disability check Brown’s sister received was their only income, she testified.
MORE: Murder trial begins in death of Augusta child in 2020
That day in June when she came home to hear that Derrick had been bad again just infuriated her. Only days earlier they found a picture of Derrick and Brown’s sister that indicated possible sexual activity. Derrick was the one punished for that, although he was the child.
Testimony continues Friday.
Sandy Hodson is a staff reporter covering courts for The Augusta Press. Reach her at sandy@theaugustapress.com.
