"It is the height of maliciousness not to feed a child," Assistant State's Attorney Patricia McLane told the jurors. "Either they issued the order themselves, like Queen Antoinette, or they followed it."
Newton sat in the front row, a photo of Javon pinned to her collar, a picture of Ria in a jacket pocket.
The jury deliberated less than three hours before it returned guilty verdicts March 2 on charges of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death. Sentencing is scheduled for May 18.
Newton said she dreamed of Javon the night after she testified. Each time she closed her eyes, she would see him, jumping about her bed, tugging at the sheets impishly, a frolicking, happy child.
"To interact with him for seven months, and then not to have him again, not to feel him again, that's always going to be something that I want to do, that I can't do," Newton said.
Her marriage is over; she moved out in December 2006, and her new apartment is a shrine to her dead grandson, whose pictures are everywhere. Her last fight was for his remains, which she collected from the Philadelphia medical examiner's office after his father never showed.
She buried him in January 2009.
