FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Analiz Osceola, the woman who is standing trial for the 2015 murder in Hollywood of her three-year-old stepson Ahziya, was in Broward County court on Monday when prosecutors showed a video of her interrogation.
When Hollywood Detective Sean Keough, Analiz Osceola said that Ahziya “had died during the night” when she reported him missing. The Seminole Tribe of Florida Police Department, the Broward Sheriff’s Office, and the Hollywood Police Department searched for him.
“He was cold and he was bloated,” she told Keough.
The video of the interrogation showed that Analiz Osceola admitted to hiding his little body in the laundry room because “she was scared and didn’t know what to do.” She didn’t admit to killing him.
The medical examiner reported Ahzika suffered blunt trauma.
There was already a documented history of abuse when police officers found Ahziya dead on March 22, 2015, in Hollywood. The crime scene was at the home that he had shared with his siblings, his father Nelson Osceola, and his stepmother, who is also known as Analiz Rodezno.
“This case is about the murder of an innocent child,” Assistant State Attorney Neva Rainford-Smith said in court during her opening statement on Thursday.
Rainford-Smith told the jury that the evidence will show that Analiz Osceola covered up Ahziya’s murder. Attorney William Cone, Jr., who is representing Analiz Osceola, told the jury Thursday during his opening statement that the only thing Ahziya’s stepmother was guilty of was of lying.
The trial’s first witness was Dr. Liora Adler, a pediatric emergency doctor who examined Ahziya after he had suffered a bone fracture. Adler said Analiz Osceola reported that Ahziya had some difficulty walking.
Analiz Osceola first told detectives that Ahziya, a wallet, and cash had vanished from their home on March 19, 2015, and the back door was open. Video of a detective’s interrogation shows she later said Ahziya woke up feeling sick, she took him to the restroom and back to bed, and she later found him cold at 4 a.m.
Ahziya’s body was bruised and battered when detectives found him dead in the home on March 22, 2015. Hollywood police officers reported his body was in a trash bag, and inside a toy box that was covered with laundry near a washer and dryer, according to police.
Keough is set to testify on Wednesday. Analiz Osceola faces charges of aggravated manslaughter, child neglect, and providing false information to law enforcement.
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