Father sentenced in toddler's fatal beating

Destiny Jackson "smiled the day she was born and every day thereafter," her grandmother said Thursday morning in a standing-room-only courtroom in St. Paul.

The 15-month-old "was named Destiny, but since Destiny is such a loaded name for a little baby and since her mom always dressed her in pink, I called her Pinky," Mikel Clifford said.

On a cold, dark night in mid-February, Destiny's 18-year-old father, Beauford C. Jackson III, punched and hit her, over and over again, in the stomach and neck. Paramedics were called just after midnight Feb. 13, but it was already too late. Destiny died at 1:34 a.m.

On Thursday, Ramsey County District Judge William Leary sentenced Jackson to 13 years and nine months in prison for his daughter's death.

He will be required to serve two-thirds -- slightly more than nine years -- in prison before he is eligible for release. He will be just 27 when he gets out.

"I barely sleep, I barely eat, I'm up 24/7 thinking about [Destiny]," Jackson told the judge. "I sit in my room day after day wishing I could take that day back. I never thought I could hurt someone so much -- at the same time hurting myself. I am sorry for what I have done."

The judge told Jackson: "I believe you have remorse. I hope that Destiny is with you every moment for the rest of your life. And if anything can be saved from this tragic situation, it is that her memory may change your life as well."

Destiny, whom her grandmother described as a child who "approached everyone she met as if they would naturally be as delighted to see her as she was with them," had been returned to her parents -- Maeve Clifford, 19, and Jackson -- on Jan. 31, just two weeks before she was beaten to death. She'd been placed in foster care Dec. 19 after suffering a skull fracture while in her father's care three days earlier.

Both Jackson and Maeve Clifford initially lied to police about that incident. Clifford told police that Destiny had fallen out of bed on Dec. 16 at Jackson's mother's home; the next day she noticed swelling on the side of Destiny's head and called for an ambulance. Jackson said he wasn't there when Destiny fell out of bed.

A child protection worker was brought in, and Destiny was sent to a foster home. Jackson later admitted that he'd been alone with Destiny. He said that when the phone rang, he put the little girl on his shoulders and ran downstairs. He said Destiny's head hit the overhang on the stairs and she fell off his shoulders.

St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh said at the time that a police investigator and child protection worker made a mutual decision to return Destiny to her parents on Jan. 31. Doctors "made a medical determination that the explanation provided by the father was plausible," Walsh said.

Destiny's parents lied to police again on Feb. 13. According to the criminal complaint, both said the little girl had fallen off the bed.

But in charges filed against Jackson on Feb. 14 and at a hearing July 9 where Jackson pleaded guilty to second-degree unintentional murder, the truth came out.

Jackson said he was alone with Destiny after Clifford went to the grocery store shortly before midnight. He said Destiny started crying and threw up in bed and he picked her up. "I took her to get her bottle and that's when I did what I did, I guess," he said.

"And when you say you did what you did, that's when you struck her?" Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Tami Mc-Conkey asked.

"Yeah," he replied.

"Did you do that because she was crying or was there some other reason?"I don't know, I don't know."Were you mad?"I honestly can't say -- I don't know why I did it."

The plea agreement was reached, the judge said in court Thursday, after prosecutors decided it would be a difficult case to prosecute.

"Only two people know what happened to Destiny," the judge said. Both have told lies about what happened, weakening the case, he said.

As first Mikel and then Maeve Clifford read their victim-impact statements in court, most everyone in the audience cried.

"The day before [Destiny] passed was the first in several weeks where there was sun and it was warm enough to go outside," Maeve Clifford told the court. "We went to the park for several hours, just running through the snow and playing. ... We had a pretty wonderful day. I feel like that was God giving me one last day to have a beautiful day with her and have a happy last memory.

"On the day of her passing, it was almost as if she knew it was her last day with me. All day, she was very quiet and clingy, way more than usual. It was like she didn't want to let me go.

"Her life, her being, will always be in my heart. ... She was the best gift I could ever give to God."

Pat Pheifer • 651-298-1551

Pat Pheifer • ppheifer@startribune.com