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For repeatedly beating and starving their 6-year-old son Khalil Whimes, actions that led to his March 19, ’12 death, Point Breeze dwellers Tina Cuffie and Floyd Wimes will serve as many as 60 years in a sentencing issued Nov. 26.
Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott punished the two for their three-year cycle of abuse against the boy in their home on the 1800 block of South 22nd Street. Their fall sentencing stems from their late summer conviction on third-degree murder charges and gives some sad sense of relief to his foster mother, Alicia James, and foster grandmother, La Reine Nixon, whom child welfare officials ordered to return Khalil to his parents in 2009 though Cuffie, 45, and Wimes, 50, had a history of having their other offspring removed due to neglect, according to court records.
September testimony showed the two regularly withheld food from Khalil, who weighed only 29 pounds at the time of his death, subjected him to beatings with belts and cords and failed to have a doctor examine him for more than a year. The evidence also revealed Cuffie, who, along with her partner, will serve at least 30 years behind bars, had him run laps through their apartment the day before he perished as a punishment for his having vomited. Following a morning bath March 19, he suffered a punch to his head from his mother, leading to his transport to The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where he died that evening.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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