Mom’s New Man Fatally Whips Baby With Xbox Controller
Darisabel Leanna Baez, known affectionately as Dari to her family, was born on April 5th, 2006. Her mother, Neda Elizabeth Baez, was just a teenager at the time and lived at home with her mother, Margarita Torres Leone, and her stepfather, Luis Arturo Leone. The little girl was named after her paternal grandmother who passed away in 1995.
In November of 2007, when Neda was just 19 years old, she began dating 26-year-old Harvey Lamar Johnson. It’s unclear why, but her parents really didn’t like their daughter dating him. It could be because he did have a small criminal record due to a traffic stop that resulted in charges for operating without a valid license, providing a fake ID to a police officer, and possession of a small amount of marijuana. Perhaps it was also because Harvey was seven years her senior, or maybe it was because he had abandoned his wife of nine years and his three kids to be with their teenage daughter. Eventually, their relationship led to tension in the home, and Neda was kicked out.
Neda and Dari went to live with Harvey in a second-story unit located at 710 West Philadelphia Street in York, Pennsylvania. The apartment was located in one of the neighborhood’s many red-brick row houses that sprawled for city blocks. During this time, Margarita and Luis were not allowed to see their granddaughter. According to a listing for the property on Zillow, 710 West Philadelphia Street is a three-story multi-family home with five bedrooms and two bathrooms, with a third floor acting as a storage space. Now, it’s unclear what the configuration of the bedrooms were, as Harvey and Neda were using their living room as a bedroom, and Dari didn’t have an actual bed. The little girl slept on what consisted of two blankets, a baby blanket, and a sheet on the floor.
On Saturday, April 5th, 2008, Dari celebrated her second birthday. This would be the last birthday that she would ever have. She was already covered in bruises and had bald spots on her scalp where her curly brown hair was missing. The following day, Dari woke up after having a nightmare between 5:30 and 6:00 in the morning and tried to get into bed with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. Instead, Harvey swatted the little girl away, and when she began to cry, he made her stand in a corner as punishment for getting out of bed too early. Between 11:30 and noon, Harvey received a text message about his vehicle and went outside to check on it. Apparently, a car had parked behind him, and he thought someone was causing trouble.
When he came back inside around 12:20, he heard Dari crying, and Neda was acting frustrated. Allegedly, Neda wouldn’t tell him what was wrong. Harvey assumed that Dari had been playing on the stairs like she had a couple of days prior and decided to spank the little girl for it as punishment. However, Dari was crying because she was wearing a urine-soaked diaper that was filled to capacity, and she also had a bowel movement. Not realizing this, Harvey caused Dari’s diaper to explode, leaving a huge mess all over the floor. That’s right, he hit her with such force her diaper exploded. Now, while attempting to change her, the little girl had another bowel movement. This sent the man into a rage and caused a frustrated Neda to storm off.
Harvey has attempted to downplay the situation, but evidence has proven him to be a liar. He claimed that he took the little girl into another room and began beating her with the cord of his Xbox controller. He stated that he was aiming for her arm but also ended up hitting her in the back, and that he had done so about seven to eight times, after which the two of them had a “discussion” about her behavior. Neda, however, claims to have witnessed something very different. After the spanking incident in the stairwell, Harvey allegedly threatened to beat the mother before taking Dari into a separate room. There, he didn’t just beat the little girl with a cord seven or eight times; the beating carried on for 20 to 30 minutes, after which there was silence. Neda claimed that she begged Harvey to stop, but the beating continued until neither Dari was crying, nor Harvey was yelling.
Soon, she heard the water running in the clawfoot tub in the bathroom. Harvey claimed that he brought the little girl into the bathroom as she was still soiled from the spanking incident. He alleged that she continued to defecate while in the bathtub. According to Harvey, he went up to the attic to retrieve a onesie—they had just moved in and clothes were still in bags—and according to him, when he returned, Dari was face down in the bathtub. According to Harvey, he thought the little girl was just fooling around; that was until he saw her face. The little girl had a large lump on the left side of her forehead with a gash in it, and she wasn’t responding. Harvey described her eyes as open but closed at the same time. He knew something was wrong because Dari was normally a hyper toddler, and now she was lifeless.
The next thing Neda knew, Harvey was carrying out a soaking-wet Dari. The little girl was unconscious in his arms, and the two began to argue in the hallway, after which Harvey took Dari to the attic. She was then placed on Neda’s leg, and they attempted CPR. He claims that after they rubbed her back and stomach, the two-year-old little girl began to gag and expel water from her mouth. The three eventually went back downstairs to the kitchen where, according to Harvey, the little girl seemed to be getting better. Allegedly, he went downstairs to the first-floor unit to borrow his neighbor’s phone, as his own cell phone didn’t have service. It was then that he heard Neda scream. Now, different sources are unclear as to who exactly contacted 9-1-1 that afternoon. Harvey claims that it was him, whilst Neda is named as the caller in Harvey’s affidavit. Either way, a call was placed at 2:26 PM requesting an ambulance for a two-year-old girl in cardiac arrest.
The next part of our story outlines the experience of the First Responders when they arrived on the scene of 710 West Philadelphia Street. (If you’re interested in hearing more, please check out the short documentary called Cariño Darisabel by Jason Plotkin). The first to arrive on the scene was Officer Roger Nestor, who ran into Harvey in the first-floor entryway. Officer Nestor described Harvey as extremely unhelpful; he was texting and mumbled to the officer when he was asked where Dari was located. Harvey later fled on foot to his brother’s house on the same block. After more units arrived, the next to arrive were Officer Lisa Daniels and Officer (now Detective) Andy Baez, followed by White Rose Ambulance EMS Supervisor Donald Sanders Jr. Along with Officer Nestor, they found Neda providing CPR to an unconscious Dari on the kitchen floor.
Even though the apartment was dimly lit, the bruising to Dari’s body was apparent. Officer Nestor described it being so bad that it reminded him of camouflage. Officer Daniels observed bruising in various stages of healing, including fresh wounds that were currently bleeding. Dari had no pulse. When Officer Daniels administered rescue breaths, she could taste blood on the little girl’s lips. Blood spatter and clumps of hair were observed on the walls and the floor near Dari’s makeshift bed, as well as on a pile of her clothes located in the kitchen. Additionally, blood was also located on an Xbox controller and on one of Dari’s boots.
When asked what happened to her daughter, Neda began to spin a web of lies. First, she claimed that Dari slipped and fell in the tub. After Officer Nestor called her out, she then changed her story and claimed that she had fallen down the stairs. Even though her daughter’s injuries were obviously far from accidental, Neda was taken to the York Police Department to be further questioned. Officer Baez (no relation to Neda or Dari) carried the little girl’s battered and bruised body in his arms down the stairs into the ambulance. The officer was met by a gaggle of onlookers that had assembled outside of the apartment to rubberneck. The officer wanted Dari to know that if he was the last person to hold her, that somebody cared for her.
Dari was taken by ambulance to York Hospital’s trauma bay. She was found to be brain-dead. She was later transferred to Penn State Hershey Medical Center’s Critical Care Unit and was placed on life support. The little girl’s wounds were so widespread and severe, and included visible bruises, marks, and lacerations to her head, back, and body, as well as further injuries to her head, brain, chest, heart, liver, neck, extremities, and her private parts. It was obvious to everyone involved that Dari had been tortured over a very long period of time.
According to one source, Harvey was located by Sergeant Roy Kohler in a nearby laundromat talking on the phone to a dispatcher. Other sources claim that Harvey returned to the apartment from his brother’s house, where he was ultimately arrested. Sergeant Kohler would later testify that when he responded to the 9-1-1 call, he noticed Harvey near the residence breathing rapidly and appearing distraught. Sergeant Kohler asked him if he was okay, to which he replied, “No, I don’t feel well.” He then asked Harvey to come to the police cruiser to be medically examined, and he agreed to do so. According to the sergeant, while they were walking towards the cruiser, Harvey said, and I quote, “I know I’m in trouble because of all the bruises all over her body. I beat her yesterday pretty bad with a belt,” end quote.
EMS Supervisor Sanders later testified that he medically examined Harvey in the back of the cruiser. During the examination, Harvey asked how Dari was doing. Sanders told him they were doing everything possible for the little girl and asked Harvey what happened to her, to which he replied, “I’ve been beating her.” Sanders inquired, “What do you mean?” and Harvey stated, “I’m sorry, I did it.” Sanders inquired again, “What do you mean you did it?” to which Harvey elaborated, “I have been hitting the child for the last two or three days.” Sanders asked, “Well, what did you use on the child?” and Harvey responded, “A belt.”
Sergeant Kohler subsequently drove Harvey to the York City Police Department to be interviewed by Detective Matthew Lutchko at 8:55 PM. During the drive, Harvey said, quote, “That girl and her mother bruise when I touch them at all. If I bite her mother or hit Dari at all, they bruise right up,” end quote. We will have a link in our show notes for you for the full 23-page interview that details Harvey’s timeline of events that we’ve outlined earlier. An item of note that’s worth mentioning from the interview is that Harvey claimed that Neda, whom he refers to as Elizabeth, was pregnant with his baby. This is noteworthy because after doing a bunch of digging, it’s unclear what became of that baby or if Neda was even pregnant at all.
He went on to explain that he put a roof over Dari’s head because he felt sorry for her, and that when he first met her mother, he had to buy her shoes because she didn’t have any. He claimed that his ex-wife hated him for dating Neda and that she wouldn’t allow him contact with his own three kids. Harvey had been with his ex-wife for nine years and she “hated him for taking care of another woman’s child” (I think she probably hates him because he abandoned her). He also confessed that it took them so long to call 9-1-1 for help as he was scared that he would get in trouble for all of Dari’s bruises, and that he had planned to drive the little girl to the hospital and just leave her there. He claimed that he could have taken his car and fled, but he didn’t; he could have hopped a bus to New York, but he didn’t.
In the end, Harvey made excuses and tried to explain away what happened to Dari as an accident—that he was just a doting father figure that had to discipline the little girl for her own good, not because he wanted to do so. The interview was short, concluding at 9:13 PM, with Harvey being arrested for aggravated assault and child endangerment. Neda, too, was interviewed by Detective Lutchko and claimed that she pled with Harvey to stop beating her daughter. She claimed that although she was in another room for the bulk of the incident, she entered the room to find Dari curled up in a ball in the corner with a lump on her head with a gash in it. According to Neda, Harvey told her that if she didn’t leave, she would just make things worse. York City Police Detective First Class Dana Ward, who is also a youth caseworker, noted that Neda was very emotional and asked for updates constantly on her daughter’s condition.
The police were ready to release her so that way she could be with Dari. That was until crime scene investigators that had been running a sweep of the apartment came across a journal inside of the home. After reviewing the journal, investigators learned that Neda was not as innocent as she made herself out to be. At that point, she was arrested. Dari languished on life support for 30 hours; she never regained consciousness. On Monday, April 7th, 2008, Darisabel Leanna Baez was taken off life support and passed away at 9:28 PM, just two days after her second birthday. The hospital staff thoughtfully made a heart-shaped plaster of the little girl’s hand and presented it to her grandmother, Margarita. First-degree homicide was added to Harvey’s list of charges, and Neda was charged with endangering the welfare of a minor for failing to intervene in her daughter’s torture. Both were booked into the York County Prison. Bail was set at $200,000 for Harvey and $25,000 for Neda (later her bail was set at $100,000).
The following morning, Dr. Wayne Ross conducted Dari’s autopsy. He determined that she died of multiple traumatic injuries, and her manner of death was listed as homicide. He found approximately 220 external injuries, 150 of which were fresh, meaning they had occurred within 24 hours of Dari’s admission to the hospital. He noted that Dari’s right ear had fresh trauma, and the center of it had an abrasion consistent with someone scraping a fingernail inside of it. Dari’s hair on the right side of her head was pulled out by its roots. Injuries on her left shoulder were caused by the cord of the Xbox controller, and her entire left arm had become swollen. She had been beaten in the face with her own hiking boot, which left a waffle pattern on her skin. He determined bruises on the back of her forearm and injuries to her feet and lower legs were all caused by blunt force trauma. He discovered numerous fresh internal injuries to Dari’s head, including swelling and bleeding in her brain, as well as retinal hemorrhages and damage to her spinal cord. Additionally, the tips of her fingers were black, and she was missing several of her fingernails.
After examining Dari’s private parts, Dr. Ross found distinctive fingernail marks which indicated that the two-year-old had been repeatedly pinched. He noted that Dari suffered trauma to her heart, right lung, liver, pancreas, and right adrenal gland, which were caused by multiple high-velocity impacts to the chest and belly. There were also hemorrhages to her neck caused by compression or strangulation. In his opinion, Dari was repeatedly struck at a speed of approximately 20 miles per hour. He concluded at the rate of injury every 20 seconds, it would have taken 45 to 60 minutes to inflict all of Dari’s fresh injuries.
After the autopsy concluded, Dauphin County Coroner Graham Hetrick (whom you might know from the TV show The Coroner: I Speak for the Dead) noted that Dari’s injuries amounted to one of the worst cases of child abuse he had ever seen. It was clear from the bruises and other injuries on the little girl’s body that it had not been the first time that she was attacked. Forensic nurse Patty O’Brien would later testify that the injuries inflicted upon Dari’s body were so severe and numerous that she ran out of room to document all of them on the autopsy report diagram. Dari’s funeral was held on Saturday, April 12th, at Kuhner Associates Funeral Directors, located at 863 South George Street in York. It was officiated by the Reverend Aaron J. Anderson and the Reverend Euphemia Soto. The service was attended by family, friends, members of the community, and the First Responders that assisted in her 9-1-1 call. She was later laid to rest in the Cherub Garden section of Mount Rose Cemetery in Spring Garden Township in a tiny white casket covered in pink flowers. Her granite and bronze grave marker was embossed with a teddy bear; below a picture of Dari and a baby deer were the words, “Sing to you, my rainbow.”
Three months after Dari died, her mother’s charge of endangering the welfare of a minor was upgraded to a homicide charge, and her bail was revoked. While awaiting trial, Neda had to be heavily medicated after attempting to take her own life in her cell. In October of 2009, Neda pled guilty to third-degree homicide in exchange for her testimony against Harvey Johnson. Neda was sentenced to five to ten years in state prison. She served her time at SCI Cambridge Springs, which is a medium-security, all-female prison. She was paroled in 2013, having served only four years of her sentence, after which she allegedly assumed the name of Elizabeth Torres and is reported to have since had a son.
On November 9, 2009, the trial of Harvey Johnson began. At trial, Harvey, who couldn’t be bothered to take responsibility for his own actions, stuffed his ears with tissue paper and put his head on the table so he didn’t have to see or hear any of the testimony or heinous acts that he committed. The following day, before the pictures of Dari’s battered body were shown to the court, Harvey filed a motion to leave the courtroom so that way he did not have to view them. That motion was denied, so instead, he went back to his immature behavior of plugging his ears with his thumbs and putting his head down on the table. He then began to rock back and forth and weep. During his trial, the jury heard testimony from the First Responders that arrived at 710 West Philadelphia Street on the afternoon of April 6, 2008. This included Officers Nestor, Daniels, and Baez, as well as EMS Supervisor Sanders and Sergeant Kohler. Dr. Ross and forensic nurse O’Brien, who oversaw Dari’s autopsy, also provided testimony.
On Friday, December 13, 2009, Harvey Lamar Johnson was found guilty of the first-degree homicide of Darisabel Baez. The jury only deliberated for two hours. During the penalty phase of his trial three days later, Harvey’s mother, Cassandra Lloyd, and his sister, Heather Lloyd, testified upon his behalf, outlining raising Harvey as a former addict in Spanish Harlem. The mother had gotten clean 15 years prior but admitted to beating Harvey with anything that she could get her hands on, including Hot Wheels tracks, belts with big buckles, cords, and a clothes iron. She said she spent her welfare checks one year on drugs, then locked her kids in their room for two days so she would not have to face them on Christmas without presents. Her older son, Heath Lloyd, is currently in prison in Louisiana for homicide. This time, it only took the jury one hour and 35 minutes to deliberate, and Harvey was sentenced to death.
On July 18, 2013, then-Governor Tom Corbett signed Harvey’s death warrant. His death by lethal injection was scheduled to take place on September 10th of the same year. However, on July 23rd, Harvey and his attorney filed a motion for an emergency stay of execution and a motion for post-conviction relief. His stay of execution was granted in August of 2013. Harvey’s motion for post-conviction relief wasn’t decided until March of 2021, where it was finally denied. Harvey, of course, is still appealing his sentence. As of the date of this recording, Harvey is still awaiting execution and serving his time at SCI Phoenix in Skippack Township, which also at one point housed Bill Cosby. An execution has not been carried out in Pennsylvania since 1999 (and that was serial killer Gary Heidnik). Prior to that, only three have been carried out since 1976 due to a moratorium on executions, but this does not stop death sentences from being issued. Today, there are currently over 150 inmates on death row in Pennsylvania, which makes you wonder if Harvey’s sentence will ever be carried out. So what do you think? Should Harvey be executed, or should he spend the rest of his miserable life in prison? Let us know in the comment section down below.
