Mom Testifies in NJ Baby Murder Case

Jurors in the murder trial of a New Jersey man accused of throwing his 3-month-old daughter off a bridge have heard from the child's mother.

The Star-Ledger reports that Venetta Benjamin testified for more than an hour on Wednesday, discussing her troubled relationship with Shamsidden Abdur-Raheem. She also discussed a phone conversation she had with him a few months after their child's death, in which he discussed life in prison and asked her to come visit him.

Prosecutors played the taped conversation for jurors, who heard an angry Benjamin tell Abdur-Raheem that "you killed my baby." Abdur-Raheem did not look at Benjamin while she testified, and his lawyer did not cross-examine her.

Prosecutors say Abdur-Raheem abducted Zara Malani-Lin Abdur-Raheem from her maternal grandmother's East Orange apartment in February 2010.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)