As a judge convicted her Monday of brutally dragging a toddler beneath her truck in a hit-and-run case that has gripped the community, Lazara Arellano de Hogue sat expressionless. But the verdict began to sink in.
Minutes after the packed courtroom had cleared, Arellano de Hogue, a Mexican immigrant and mother of four, began to talk in rapid Spanish with her attorney.
Her voice cracked. Her eyes watered. She began to cry.
Outside the Towson courthouse, Kevin Cozart wore a button with a picture of his slain 3-year-old son, Elijah.
“If she stopped,” Cozart said, fighting back emotion, “Elijah wouldprobably still be with us.”
In a case that Baltimore County Circuit Judge John Hennegan said had “no winners,” he convicted Arellano de Hogue of vehicular manslaughter in the Dec. 1, 2006, dragging death of Elijah, whose grandmother was pushing him in a stroller across a busy Towson street when a red pick-up crashed into them.
Elijah?s mangled body was found more than a mile away. He was still alive. The medical examiner?s description of his injuries was at times too gruesome for print.
Hennegan added he “tortured himself” over the verdict.
“I don?t find what I did brings Elijah back,” the judge said.
Elijah?s mother, Marsha Cozart, said after the verdict that her life has become a “never-ending nightmare.” She said that Arellano de Hogue never apologized and that she believes the defendant doesn?t feel remorse.
“I can?t believe she?s a parent and she could put other parents through such suffering,” Elijah?s mother said.
Arellano de Hogue?s attorney, Ricardo Zwaig, said earlier in court that Elijah?s grandmother, Marjorie Thomas, exercised “bad judgment.”
“Ms. de Hogue is not a monster. Ms. de Hogue is not a murderer,” Zwaig argued. “This is an accident. This is one of those unfortunate things that happen in life.”
But prosecutor Allan Webster countered that she could have stopped or called 911.
“She executed zero judgment,” he said. “She was only concerned about getting away from what she did.”
Arellano de Hogue?s family declined to comment on the verdict.
She will be sentenced Nov. 16.
