Haverhill Man Who Murdered 2 Year Old By Stomping On Her Belly Moves In With Newburyport Nurse Who Married Him Behind Bars, Victim’s Family Not Notified

 

In 1998 a 19 year old Haverhill man named James Douglas murdered his baby momma Karen Brown’s 2 year old niece by stomping on her belly because he was mad that she was crying while he tried to watch Grace Under Fire.

Source: A Haverhill father of three was sentenced to life in prison yesterday after admitting he stomped the life out of a 2-year-old girl because he could not hear a television over the sound of her crying. James Douglas, 20, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder before Salem Superior Court Judge Richard E. Welch, admitting he stomped on toddler Amanda Brown’s abdomen a year ago because he could not hear a Saturday afternoon re-run of the TV sitcom Grace Under Fire.

“I’m just happy that he got life. I can move on now,” said Mary Brown, the girl’s mother.

“She was my world. I’m going to miss her,” said Amanda’s father, Scott Leatham. “I’m glad he got what he got.”

Douglas agreed to plead guilty to a reduced charge to avoid being convicted of first-degree murder, which carries a life sentence with no chance for parole. He will be eligible for parole after 15 years.

“It was a very strong case for second-degree murder,” said Essex County Assistant District Attorney Fred McAlary. “I think he did the right thing by changing his plea.”

Douglas and his girlfriend, Karen Brown, who is Mary Brown’s sister, were taking care of their three children and Mary Brown’s four children in the third-floor apartment at 23 Cedar St. in Haverhill the day of the Aug. 29, 1998, attack. While Karen Brown played outside with four of the children, three youngsters, including Amanda, stayed inside while Douglas watched
television, McAlary said. After once yelling at Amanda to “shut up” because he could not hear the television, Douglas stormed into a bedroom and stomped on the girl’s stomach when her crying again interrupted his program. When Douglas checked on the girl two hours later, he found her cold and not breathing,” McAlary said. The girl was pronounced dead a short time later at Hale Hospital.

When investigators confronted Douglas several days later with autopsy results that concluded the girl had died from blunt trauma to the abdomen, Douglas confessed to the assault and recreated the incident for state police detectives Lt. Elaine Gill and Sgt. Jack Garvin.

“When he showed us how he stomped her, the whole floor shook,” said Garvin. “This is something like the 10th child death I have investigated and they don’t get any easier.”

This was before DVR, so he apparently had no choice but to kill her unless he was willing to miss part of a 90’s sitcom.

Douglas plead guilty to second degree murder, which led to a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 15 years. He was denied parole in 2013, in 2018,. and again in 2020. Reasons for his denial include:

• His long history of violence towards women before killing the 2 year old girl, who was frightened of him prior to being killed because she witnessed him beating Karen Brown.
• He initially accused Karen Brown of killing the girl, but later recanted that statement.
• He lied to the parole board about no longer seeing Karen Brown (visitor logins show she continued to visit him in jail throughout his incarceration), and failed to mention that he was in a new relationship with a woman who was visiting him behind bars, who he planned to move in with if he got out.
• This woman happens to use his last name and considered herself his wife.
• He falsely accused another inmate of raping him, when in fact the two of them had consensual sex. In retaliation for the false report the other man ended up stabbing Douglas.

This is April Douglas from Haverhill.

She is a nurse at Country Manor Rehab and Nursing in Newburyport.

She’s a really important person who is essential to society. Unlike you she can’t stay home, but you must.

April is the visitor who chose to marry a convicted baby killer while he was behind bars, and led the case to free him.

Because finding men who didn’t kill babies and weren’t incarcerated narrowed the dating pool by too much.

Last Wednesday Douglas was released from prison and moved in with April Douglas, close to his victim’s house in Haverhill. There are no records online of him being paroled, and the victim’s family was not notified of his release. The two of them are now living with April’s disabled parents, which April reportedly receives a check for. You are supposed to be CORI checked to live with an adult foster, but since we live in a state where baby killers get released from prison without telling the victim’s family, I’m sure that’s not a big deal.

They also live with her 14 year old son, who April likes to use as a political prop because he’s biracial.

She’s really big into the BLM thing.

But the baby that he murdered, and the woman he routinely abused, were both black as well. Apparently some black lives matter more than others to hypocrites like this.

Somehow April knew ahead of time that her baby killing husband would be released early from prison, because she bought him a car.

Meanwhile, according to our source she was dating 3 of his brothers (Leroy Douglas, Haverhill, Barry Douglas, Bath Maine, Solomon Separato) while he was incarcerated, but considered James the prize of the family. Hard to compete with these studs.

Luckily Amanda Brown’s 3 brothers were removed from Karen Brown’s home shortly after the murder, and adopted by a nice gay couple, so they thrived into productive adults. But Amanda Brown’s other aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents are furious that this baby killer is now living in their community, and that they weren’t notified. Can’t say I blame them.

As for April Douglas, I guess there’s nothing illegal about what she’s doing, but fighting to get a baby killer out of jail because you’re tired of getting tossed around by his non-baby killing brothers, is an extremely trashy thing to do. And I wouldn’t want my loved ones being cared for by her in Newburyport.