Hannah Overton (crying salty tears)

Judge rejects claims in salt-poisoning case:

Earlier this week a Texas judge rejected the claims that Hannah Overton should get a new trial. Score one for the good guys for once.

For those of you new to the site Overton was convicted and sentenced to life in the murder of her 4-year-old foster child Andrew Burd who died from sodium poisoning. A ‘Free Hannah’ movement has formed from the media coverage and the fact that she attends a fundamental Christian church.

In his ruling the judge said that there was no prosecutorial misconduct and that all evidence that was supposedly knew was known by both parties at the time of the trial including the testimony of a salt poisoning expert who said that Andrew had eaten the salt himself. The defense at the time chose not to have the expert testify.

Of course Overton’s current attorney says that they are going to file more appeals. Unfortunately no one can file any appeals for Andrew Burd.

Hannah 'Salty Dog' Overton

Overton case to be reviewed by Texas appeals court:

Churches can do great things for society when they put their minds to it. Some of the greatest charities in this country are run by churches. Churches can also do great evil when they lead their congregations astray. Such is the case of Hannah Overton.

As you should know by now Overton was convicted of killing her foster son Andrew Burd by sodium poisoning and blunt force trauma. The number of atrocities committed on Andrew have been well documented on this site. Now the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will be reviewing Hannah Overton’s case. The reason they are reviewing the case is because her church and the ‘Free Hannah’ movement have raised money to produce a video declaring her innocence.

The group has also sent letters to Texas Governor Rick Perry to plead her case. If you’ve been following the Republican primaries you should know by now that Perry is a bigot that hides behind the Bible.

I don’t know how much money they raised but whatever the amount was it probably could have been served better going to some needy families instead of trying to free a convicted child killer. If you ever read any of the excuses that the Free Hannah movement has put out there they sound like the ramblings of a 4-year-old trying to get out of trouble from their parents.

I think the sane people of this world need to fire back and fight for Andrew Burd since he can’t fight for himself.

I would like everybody out there to write the Texas Court of Appeals and tell them why they think that Hannah Overton should be kept behind bars. Their address is 201 W 14th St Austin, TX 78701.

When you write them please be courteous and professional in your letters. And if you’re a Christian please let them know that as well. Let them know that not all of us are blinded by our faith.

Hannah Overton

Family and Friends Fight for New Overton Trial:

I’ve posted about Hannah Overton many times before. She was convicted in 2007 for the sodium poisoning and blunt force trauma death of 4-year-old Andrew Burd. Andrew was her foster son who the Overton’s were looking to adopt.

Since Overton belongs to a fundamentalist Christian church a ‘Free Hannah’ movement has been trying to get her conviction overturned because they say that she is a ‘good Christian woman’. I was raised that good Christian women don’t kill their children but I digress.

Churches can be like families in both good ways and bad. Much like the family of abusers that we see on BB that defend child killers because they’re family, Overton’s church has circled the wagons around her instead of realizing that she’s a killer. For example, recently 1200 letters requesting a new hearing for Overton were sent to the district attorney’s office.

You know why you won’t see 1200 letters being sent in support of her conviction? Because most rational thinking people know that she deserved her conviction and don’t feel the need to write since she’s already serving a life sentence.

If you want to prove me wrong you can send a letter to…

13th Court of Appeals: Corpus Christi Site Nueces County Courthouse
901 Leopard, 10th Floor,
Corpus Christi, Texas
78401

They can also be reached by phone at (361) 888-0416 or by fax at (361) 888-0794. Or they can be e-mailed here.

Hannah Overton

New evidence cited in salt poisoning case:

You can see all my posts about Hannah Overton here. Long story short she was convicted and sentenced to life in the murder of her 4-year-old foster child Andrew Burd who died from sodium poisoning. A ‘Free Hannah’ movement has formed from the media coverage and the fact that she attends a fundamental Christian church.

Anyway Overton’s lawyer has accused the prosecution of misconduct by claiming that they withheld medical evidence from the defense at the time of trial.

“Most striking, evidence discovered in the prosecution files reveals that Andy’s stomach contents (of salt) when he arrived at Driscoll Urgent Care was a low 48, as shown in a test of gastric content from the hospital,” asserted Cynthia Orr, Overton’s lawyer.

That’s all well and good and if this was held from the defense than the prosecutor should be punished. However in my opinion this does not exonerate Overton.

For example the cause of death listed by the coroner was sodium poisoning with a secondary cause of blunt force trauma. I would tend to take the word of a coroner than that of an urgent care clinic. No offense to urgent care workers but coroners have the luxury of being more thorough since unfortunately their patient isn’t going anywhere. Not to mention that doesn’t explain away the blunt force trauma either. Also let’s not forget that Andrew was allegedly forced to sleep on a sheet of plywood.

I do say that this is enough to grant her a new trial. I have no problem if she gets a new trial. When she’s found guilty again maybe the Free Hanna movement will finally give up the ghost.

Hannah Overton loses another appeals battle:

I oroginally posted about Hannah Overton here and here. A basic rundown is she was convicted and sentenced to life for killing 4-year-old Andrew Burd by sodium poisoning and has an innocence movement behind her because she belongs to a hardcore Christian church.

Anyway she has had yet another appeal denied this time by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. As a matter of fact they refused to even hear the case. Her next step is to take her case to the U.S. Supreme court who may not even choose to take the case on.

Hannah Overton case upheld by appeals court:

I originally posted about Hannah Overton here.

To recap she was convicted of killing 4-year-old Andrew Burd by sodium poisoning and abuse and failure to get him proper treatment. A ‘Free Hannah’ movement grew out of her conviction because she belongs to a church. So because she’s a ‘Christian woman’ she couldn’t have possibly killed Andrew. Apparently her followers never heard of Occam’s Razor which says the most likely answer is usually the correct one.

Anyway her movemnet was dealt a serious blow this past week when The 13th Court of Appeals handed down a 95 page smackdown on the appeal of her conviction. Check out what the appeal itself said…

Overton appealed the conviction on several grounds, including errors in the indictment and jury charge, insufficient evidence, prosecutorial misconduct and a claim of newly discovered evidence. The defense also accused 214th District Judge Jose Longoria of abusing his discretion in allowing testimony from the medical examiner and a doctor who treated the boy.

That’s what I like to call the spaghetti defense. By that I mean they throw everything against the wall and hope that something sticks.

Now let’s hear from one of the Free Hannah movement, Doug Hoffman assistant pastor of Calvary Chapel Coastlands, aka Free Hannah ground zero.

“We are confident that Hannah will be released someday — not just released but found innocent, that she did not intentionally harm this child,” Hoffman said. The ruling “was a punch in the stomach, but it wasn’t totally unexpected from knowing how things are sometimes handled there.”

You can be as confident as you want she’s in jail and will be staying there for the rest of her natural life. This isn’t some kind of Christian persecution or conspiracy, it’s justice.

In the interest of jurors?:

Rod Carver is the pastor of Calvary Chapel of the Coastlands in Corpus Christi, Texas. That’s the church that’s mainly behind the free Hannah Overton movement.

Pastor Carver has a new project born out of the free Hannah movement. It’s called In the Interest of Justice and is designed to educate the public about the judicial system. Because if anyone knows more about the legal system it’s a church pastor. That was sarcasm by the way. But if anyone needs an education in the legal system it’s the free Hannah folks because it’s obvious they have no clue.

And where was the interest of justice for Andrew Burd?

Do you know what I hate? Well, most things really but I have something specific in mind today. I hate just about any ‘Free Whoever’ movements when the evidence clearly showed that the person who they want free has no business being free. For example my opposition to the “Free Mumia” movement is well documented.

So I’m sure you’re wondering what this has to do with bad parenting or child abuse. Well, another case of people wanting to free a convicted criminal has been brought to my attention. It seems there is a movement to free one Hannah Overton. Who is Hannah Overton you ask? Let me tell you.

At the age of two Andrew Burd was placed into foster care. He lived for 18 months with Sharon Hamil. Ms. Hamil is a widow with grown children who took very good care of Andrew and never had any behavioral or medical problems with him. However she felt that Andrew would do better in a two parent household. This is where the Overtons stepped in. They took Andrew into what on the surface seemed like an ideal household. They were a religious family with 4 children of their own. But as we all know religion doesn’t mean squat when it comes to bad parenting.

In May of 2006 Andrew had a medical exam that was required by social services. The doctor who examined Andrew found him to be totally healthy. The Overtons then started the procedure to adopt Andrew.

Later that year it is claimed that Andrew had a voracious apeteite and was constantly overeating. This is where things started to go wrong for Andrew.

Hannah Overtin and her supporters claim that while Andrew was on one of his eating binges Hannah sprinkled a small amount of Zatarain’s seasoning into his sippy cup with water to get him to stop eating. Allegedly that plan backfired and Andrew enjoyed the taste of it. Later that night Andrew started to have respiratory problems, flu like symptoms, and started vomiting. Hannah, who was studying to be an EMT and LVN, did not call 911. Rather than doing that she made some phone calls, looked up ‘shock’ in her EMT book, then finally, 90 minutes later, took Andrew not to an emergency room but an urgent care clinic. From the urgent care Andrew was taken to the hospital. Unfortunately Andrew did not survive.

When the autopsy was performed the cause of death was ruled as sodioum poisoning with a secondary factor of blunt force trauma. Hospiatl workrers also noticed bruising in his body and an untreated wound on his arm that was consistent with a burn. The Overtons were arrested for Andrew’s death.

During the investigation one of the Overtons biological children told police that Hannah Overton would use pepper as a form of punishment and that Hannah would watch over Andrew with a security cam. One might assume that since she was using a security cam they she may have been locking Andrew in the room, the same room where it was alleged that Andrew was forced to sleep on a piece of plywood.

Larry Overton cut a deal that kept him out of prison to care for his other kids. Hannah went to trial and was convicted of Andrew’s murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

As with most of these movements thay have a website that allegedly outlines all the ways that Hannah Overton is ‘innocent’. I’m not going to link to them because they don’t deserve the traffic. However check out what they say about the accusation that Hannah Overton used pepper as a form of punishment…

Lie: Hannah regularly forced spices down her children’s throats

Truth: Nether I or the leadership of Calvary Chapel have ever told anyone how to specifically discipline their children as was a rumor on the blogs and reported by TV stations in CC. Instead of soap (which is common,) “Focus on the Family” recommends Tabasco sauce on the tongue when a child cusses or lies. Reasoning, soap is toxic and Tabasco sauce is a food substance and much safer. A respected friend of Hannah’s recommended one fleck of “Pizza Hut” pepper (again a food substance) on the tongue when a child lied or cussed. This has nothing to do with the Zaterain’s seasoning and was never been used as discipline on Andrew or any of the younger children. Confusion arose with the term “pepper” because the families’ favorite drink is Dr. Pepper and is referred to as Pepper by the whole family.

Seriously, that’s the best you can come up with? A 1/4 teaspon of Zataran’s contains 240mg of salt. For the amount of sodium that was found in Andrew’s body he would have to have ingested 10 times that amount. Yet they say the kid who talked to police must have been confused with Dr. Pepper

Here’s what they say about the blunt force trauma…

Lie: Hannah beat Andrew on the head causing blunt force head trauma

Truth: No doctor reported any bruising on the scalp prior to the autopsy. Even in the autopsy there was no bruising on the scalp but only underneath it. A medical examiner from San Francisco , top graduate from Harvard explained that this would be a result of the high sodium in his blood and his bloods inability to clot. Turns out I rubbed his head all day in the hospital and even this could have caused his sub-skin bruising.

At least they didn’t go with the ‘he walked into a table’ defense we see so much. Blunt force trauma doesn’t always produce a bruise. As many times as I’ve had concussions none of them bruised the skin.

But their main argument seems to be why would she abuse a child that she could just give back? Apparently they don’t read this site much. I can cite several stories on this website alone where foster children had been abused to the point of death. There doesn’t have to be a reason but the main reason is usually greed with some foster parents collecting government money.

As with most of these movements there have been an ongoing number of appeals to try and get this convicted killer turned loose. If you want to help you can send correspondence in support of Hannah’s conviction to…

13th Court of Appeals: Corpus Christi Site Nueces County Courthouse
901 Leopard, 10th Floor,
Corpus Christi, Texas
78401

They can be reached by phone at (361) 888-0416 or by fax at (361) 888-0794. Or you can send them an e-mail here.

When contacting them please be professional and courteous.

I’ll be updating this story as more details become available.

You can also check out Lost in Lima Ohio for another take on it.