Defense: Victim’s daughter confessed in jail to slaying

The daughter of a woman who was beaten to death with a hammer confessed that she was the one who did it, a former Suffolk County jail inmate testified Thursday.

Anne Lehman-Mann, 46, of Shirley, testified at the first-degree murder trial of Antonio Christian, 28, of Roosevelt.

Christian, the boyfriend of the victim’s daughter, is accused of killing Saundra Simonée, 59, at her East Norwich home on Sept. 26, 2013 and dumping her body in Bay Shore. The defense says the daughter, Shatura Simonée, 29, was the killer.

Lehman-Mann, testifying for the defense, said she met Shatura Simonée during a 4-month stint in jail in 2014. Shatura Simonée, who testified against Christian, is charged with criminal facilitation and hindering prosecution in the case.

During questioning by defense attorney Steven Wilutis of Miller Place, Lehman-Mann said she asked Simonée why she was in jail.

“She was very scary to me,” Lehman-Mann said. “Her story changed so much it didn’t make sense.”

Shatura Simonée acknowledged during her testimony that her story has taken many forms, evolving until shortly before the trial began before state Supreme Court Justice Mark Cohen in Riverhead.

Lehman-Mann said Simonée told her that her mother was upset to find Christian at the house and ordered him out. After he left, Simonée said she argued with her mother about Christian and about money she had stolen from her mother, Lehman-Mann said.

“It just got out of control and I lost it,” Simonée said, according to Lehman-Mann.

Later, Lehman-Mann said she was shocked when Simonée asked if she knew how soon she’d get the money from the sale of her mother’s house.

“I was really taken aback,” Lehman-Mann said. “I was really disturbed by being in the presence of pure evil.”

During cross-examination by Assistant District Attorney Laura Newcombe, Lehman-Mann acknowledged that she’s lost track of how many times she’s been arrested. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life,” she said.

Newcombe asked how many times she’d been married.

“I’ve been married twice,” she said, then paused. “No, three times.”

Earlier, Suffolk Chief Medical Examiner Michael Caplan testified that Saundra Simonée suffered at least 10 blows to her head, which left her skull with “egg shell fractures.”

The damage was so severe at the back of her head that “the brain was actually pulpified,” Caplan said.

Because many of the head injuries overlapped each other and because there were hardly any defensive injuries, Caplan said Simonée likely wasn’t moving or resisting for much of the attack.

During cross-examination by Wilutis, Caplan said rigor mortis — the post death stiffening of a body — usually takes place 12 to 24 hours after death and dissipates another 12 to 24 hours after that.

A witness testified seeing Christian stand up the stiff body, wrapped in a sheet, about 27 hours after when the prosecution says the murder happened, just before he left the body behind a trash container.