July 3, 1997
BY LORRAINE FORTE CRIMINAL COURTS REPORTER
An unlicensed foster mother who drowned a 2-year-old as punishment during toilet training was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without parole.
The sentencing of Lillie Easter, 43, convicted in May of killing Corese Goldman by beating him and drowning him under a bathtub faucet, closed a child abuse case described by authorities as one of the worst they had seen.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Easter, whose background the state Department of Children and Family Services had failed to check.
The 1995 murder prompted DCFS to require relatives acting as foster parents to become licensed or have their benefits cut.
Corese's body was scarred by hundreds of marks--evidence of past abuse--although some of the marks could have been inflicted in previous foster homes, Assistant State's Attorney Kevin Byrne said in seeking the death penalty.
``As a prosecutor, you never want to walk into a courtroom and ask for the death penalty unless you believe it's appropriate, and we thought it was,'' Byrne said after the sentencing by Criminal Court Judge Stuart E. Palmer.
``But the sentence still sends a strong message that anyone who kills a child faces life in prison or possibly death,'' Byrne said.
Palmer told a packed courtroom that he would not sentence Easter to death because of her traumatic childhood, including the murder of her mother when she was 3. He also noted Easter was physically abused by several boyfriends.
In tears, Easter asked the child's family to forgive her. Corese's parents, Maurice Goldman, 33, and Sharon Robinson, 29, said afterward that they had not wanted her sentenced to death.
``That's just taking another life,'' said Robinson, who has four other children in foster care, three of whom were in Easter's home with Corese. Easter was married to an uncle of one of the siblings.
Goldman agreed, but added: ``I still feel really hurt about my son. You can never put some things behind you.''
About 55 percent of foster children in relative care are now in the homes of licensed relatives, DCFS Chief of Staff Carolyn Kopel said. That figure is up from the 37 percent living in such homes before the new requirement, Kopel said.