A four-year-old boy is helping investigators piece together the tragic last days of his six-year-old brother who was battered to death by his parents after suffering a childhood of savage abuse.
Giovanni ‘Chulo’ Jennings was routinely beaten, shot with a BB gun, and even stapled to the wall of their trailer in Madison Heights, Michigan, before the assault that ruptured his bowel and killed him.
Mother Elaina Jennings, 25, and her boyfriend Daniel Giacchina, 32, wickedly entertained themselves with surveillance videos of the little boy trying to escape the barricaded pen where he slept on a wooden plank measuring three feet by 11 inches.
The couple tried to blame his death on Chulo’s natural father, but the surviving son told police what happened in the hours after Giachinna’s final and fatal assault.
‘Chulo died all day and Danny was there,’ the four-year-old explained.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald described the couple’s treatment of their son as ‘horrific’.
‘An autopsy revealed Chulo had bruising and lacerations on his entire body, including his scalp, temples, lips, inner mouth, cheeks, forehead, chin, shoulder, forearms, fingers, thumbs, back, buttocks, inner thighs, knees and shins,’ she told a press conference.
‘Chulo was beaten by Giacchina on multiple occasions,’ she added.
‘While that abuse sometimes happened while Jennings was at work, Jennings was aware of it and approved of the physical assaults and at times even encouraged Giacchina to abuse Chulo.’
The couple had installed a home security system to monitor what they called ‘the corner’ where Chulo was confined.
A black curtain was fitted to prevent Chulo from seeing daylight and the couple would watch videos of the little boy trying to urinate, drink or break free.
Days before his death, the boy had his head wedged into a corner of the pen before being stapled in his clothes to the wall by his stepdad as a punishment for ‘looking out the window in the pen area’, McDonald said.
Giacchina then allegedly texted Jennings to tell her he had ‘solved the problem’, adding a photo of her son hanging from the wall.
Jennings told police that Giacchina had punched Chulo several times in the stomach about three days before he died.
She said Chulo began vomiting and his condition started to deteriorate, but it was not until he had stopped breathing that she called 911 at 2.35pm on July 30.
Police searched the home she shared with Giachinna and her two other children and discovered a staple gun, a BB gun, a 9mm ghost gun, and bullet holes in the walls, McDonald said.
Photos in the home pictured children playing with a handgun as Giacchina looked on, and two children pointing the handgun at a third child.
The four-year-old told investigators that Giacchina had previously shot both him and his older brother with the BB gun.
‘He told them ‘Danny shot him in the leg with a BB gun’ and showed him the wound,’ Madison Heights Police Chief Brent LeMerise told reporters.
‘He told the interviewer, ‘Danny shot Chulo in the buttocks’.’
First responders rushed Chulo to the nearest emergency room and he was later transferred to the Children’s Hospital of Michigan Stilson Specialty Center where he died at midnight on July 31.
An autopsy concluded that he had died from blunt force trauma to his abdomen and a perforated bowel ‘after a lengthy period of confinement and abuse,’ McDonald said.
‘He was badly injured, but he was not taken for medical treatment because his mother knew that a medical examination would reveal the abuse.’
Jennings and Giachinna have been charged with one count each of first-degree murder, child abuse, and lying to a police officer.
Giacchina is also charged with being a felon unlawfully in possession of a firearm and ammunition.
‘All children have a right to grow up in a home free of fear,’ McDonald said.
‘This child and his siblings suffered unimaginable abuse and lived in fear every day.
‘My office, and the Madison Heights Police Department are committed to using every resource available to us to get justice for Chulo and hold the people responsible for this death accountable, and to seek punishment that reflects the horror of his death.’
The couple were denied bail and are being held the Oakland County Jail ahead of a probable cause conference on August 21 in the 43rd District Court.