Mother: Father taunted girl

The child had a birth defect that kept her from eating normally.
KITTANNING, Pa. (AP) -- The father of a 4-year-old girl who starved to death taunted the girl with crackers and wouldn't allow her to eat dinner with the rest of the family because she wasn't potty trained, the girl's mother testified Monday.
Kristen Tatar's mother, Janet Crawford, 36, was the first to testify at the death penalty trial of James Tatar. Kristen Tatar's partially decomposed and emaciated, 11 1/2-pound body was found stuffed into a picnic cooler that had been set out behind Tatar's house for trash men to pick up in August 2003, about a month after she died.
In opening statements Monday, Chase McClister, Armstrong County assistant district attorney, said Kristen had a birth defect that kept her from eating normally, but it had been surgically corrected and it was her father's deliberate withholding of food as discipline that led to her death.
Tatar would strike the girl and withhold meals if she spit up food as a result of her physical ailment or when Kristen wouldn't use the toilet, McClister told the jury.
"This was an alarmingly cruel and deliberate form of punishment," McClister said.
Photos shown
McClister showed the jury a half-dozen photos of Kristen to make his case that the girl was a "healthy, happy, chubby-cheeked child" when she was returned to her family from foster care in September 2001 but was transformed after that into a "shockingly thin" child.
Authorities charged Tatar and Crawford, who were not married but lived together, with criminal homicide. Crawford pleaded guilty to criminal homicide and agreed to testify against Tatar.
Tatar's defense attorney, Joseph Caruso, told the jury that "one thing is certain -- a tragedy took place here." But Caruso said he'll prove that "Janet Crawford is a habitual liar, a pathological liar."
Crawford testified that Tatar taunted Kristen by showing her crackers and telling her that she could not eat the food unless she used the toilet. Eventually, Kristen was not allowed to eat with the family at the table when they ate dinner, and by the spring 2003, Kristen was very thin, sleepy and had little energy, Crawford said.
Sent to the attic
Crawford said Tatar sent Kristen to the attic on two occasions when her then-15-year-old daughter, Jaycee Reese, came to visit. Tatar was worried Reese would see bruises on Kristen or that the girl was very skinny and tell authorities or other family members, Crawford said.
Crawford said she was able to sneak Tatar food during her first stint in the attic, but not the second time.
During cross-examination, Caruso accused Crawford of lying to family members, child welfare case workers and law enforcement officials, especially in the month between when Kristen allegedly died and when police found her body. He said, for example, that she told her mother that the family -- including Kristen -- had gone to the beach, although the girl had been dead for days.
"You're full of lies, aren't you?" Caruso asked, maintaining that Crawford made up stories to cover up Kristen's death without pressure from Tatar.
During a break, Tatar told a family member in the courtroom that Crawford was a liar.
A jury was picked in Somerset County because of the publicity surrounding the case.