Valerie Owusu, Emmanuel Addae sentenced to maximum for killing 5-year-old boy

A Suffolk judge sentenced a Queens mother and stepfather to 25 years to life in prison for the murder of her 5-year-old son in the spring of 2021, telling the couple on Wednesday he couldn't think of a crime “more deserving of a maximum sentence.”

Valerie Owusu and Emmanuel Addae, both 28, of Corona, Queens, who were convicted in March of second-degree depraved indifference murder for the death of King Owusu, learned their fate after expressing their love for the child and pleading for leniency they did not receive.

“I only hope that the photographs that we all saw at this trial will haunt the both of you the way they will haunt me for the rest of my life,” acting State Supreme Court Justice Steven Pilewski told Owusu and Addae after handing down the maximum sentences.

Prosecutors said at trial the child was “severely beaten” by the couple with five objects and they made no effort to seek medical help in the two days between the beating and the boy's death.

Valerie Owusu, whose attorney sought the minimum sentence, shifted the blame for the beatings onto Addae when she spoke at sentencing, saying she was not aware of the extent of her son's injuries until she saw the evidence presented at trial.

Owusu said she began a relationship with Addae, with whom she has two more children, including one she delivered while incarcerated, in part to find a father figure for her son. She said she knew Addae was “punishing” King and wished she had recognized the seriousness of the situation sooner, so he “would be alive today.”

“Let no one ever say I did not love my son, because I did. I do,” an emotional Owusu said.

Owusu said she was suffering from depression following the birth of King's younger sister and that her son was the only person who cheered her up. She said she would hang onto those positive memories of her son while in prison.

Stepfather reacts

In his own brief remarks, Addae said he too “always loved King.”

“One day our family will get reunited in heaven,” said Addae, whose attorney had asked for a sentence of 20 years to life.

Prosecutors contend Owusu and Addae drove King 38 miles to Addae’s parents’ apartment in Brentwood rather than taking him for medical help in the days after they beat him inside their LeFrak City apartment. The couple then returned to Queens and took the daughter they share shopping at a Queens mall, officials said.

The boy, who was 3 feet, 6 inches tall, weighed 49 pounds and had no medical records from the seven months he lived with the couple, was pronounced dead hours after arriving in Suffolk on April 1, 2021. King previously lived in Ghana, where his father resides.

Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Elena Tomaro said the couple showed “not one ounce of remorse” throughout the trial or when meeting with the probation department as it prepared the presentencing reports.

“I've asked myself throughout this trial to the present day how this could have happened, 'How could two parents have done this to their child?' ” Tomaro said. “They stopped thinking of King as a human being,” the prosecutor concluded. “They stopped considering him a person.”

Addae's lawyer, Raymond Baierlein, of Bay Shore, took exception to the suggestion his client, who was raised in Ghana, showed no remorse, chalking his outward appearance in court up to a “cultural difference.”

Owusu’s attorney, Rene Myatt, of Queens, called the case “a tragedy.”

Ken Owusu, King's grandfather and Valerie's father, told the judge he is mourning the loss of both of them.

“He should be in heaven right now,” Ken Owusu said of King.

Juror at sentencing

Doug Forlastro, of East Yaphank, was one of several jurors who attended the sentencing Wednesday.

“It's probably one of the toughest juries to be on,” he said of serving on a case involving the killing of a child. “But it's our duty to make sure that justice is served. I guess, in this case, it was.”

Suffolk Medical Examiner Dr. Odette Hall testified during the three-week trial that King’s cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, torso and extremities. She told the jury an autopsy revealed King had suffered internal bleeding, tissue injuries, lung and brain damage, and more than 100 cuts and bruises.

Suffolk detectives located a belt buckle and broken sticks inside the family’s apartment during a pair of searches after the boy’s death, according to testimony at the trial.

Owusu and Addae, who were indicted by a grand jury in April 2022, initially told a Suffolk detective the boy had been injured at the hands of his father in Ghana weeks earlier.

A LeFrak City surveillance video played at trial showed no one other than Owusu or Addae entering or leaving the apartment between the time of the alleged beating and when the family left for Brentwood.

Additional footage from the hallway showed Addae strike King in the face as he carried him out of the apartment, the boy’s arms dangling over his stepfather’s right shoulder as he barely moves following the blow.

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.