Man accused of killing Key’Monnie Bean beat the 2-year-old with a shoe, prosecutors say

A Philadelphia man accused of killing his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter struck the child repeatedly with a sandal and bound her hands with a phone charger before leaving her to go to the grocery store, prosecutors said.

Sean Hernandez, 21, also known as Raafi Gorham, is charged with murder and related crimes in the Dec. 8 death of Key’Monnie Bean in South Philadelphia.

Hernandez appeared in court Thursday as prosecutors told Common Pleas Court Judge David H. Conroy that they had ample evidence of his guilt.

They showed images of Key’Monnie’s battered body. A forensic pathologist testified that the child suffered blunt force trauma to the head and torso and showed signs of suffocation.

And Assistant District Attorney Ashley Toczylowski presented emotional testimony from the child’s mother, who said she had feared intervening in the beating because Hernandez had previously abused her.

Ka’Nijah Bean recalled how she, Hernandez, and her daughter returned to Hernandez’s home on the 2100 block of South Beechwood Street after an outing that day.

Upon their arrival, Bean said, Hernandez — who is not the child’s father — grew frustrated with the toddler. He grabbed her by the arm and took her to the basement bedroom, where he placed her in the corner, Bean said.

Though the child was crying, Bean and Hernandez fell asleep on the bed, she said. Soon the child, too, was asleep, she said.

Later Bean awakened to find Hernandez striking the sleeping child repeatedly with a “slide” sandal, she said.

“He hit her in her sleep, and put her back in the corner,” Bean said.

She added: “Every time she tried to cry, he told her to shut up.”

Asked why she did not intervene, Bean told prosecutors she was afraid Hernandez would hurt her. He had once pulled a gun on her, she said, and another time cut her with a machete.

The child’s beating did not stop there, Bean continued.

She went to the bathroom and heard her child “gasping for air,” and returned to the basement to find Hernandez standing over the child with a metal pole.

Hernandez tied the child’s hands with the charging cord and bound her body with a blanket, Bean said.

He then left the child on the bed and asked Bean if she wanted to go to ShopRite, she said.

Bean said she was afraid to say no.

When they returned from the store, Bean said, Key’Monnie was “on the floor, facedown” and unresponsive.

Bean said she called 911, but efforts to revive the child were unsuccessful. She was pronounced dead at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia just before 10 p.m.

Hernandez’s lawyer, Angelo Leroy Cameron, said little throughout the hearing.

Anthony Lowrie, 21, and Alycia McNeill, 20, were also in the home during the beating, prosecutors said Thursday, when preliminary hearings for the two were scheduled to take place. They told investigators they had been upstairs playing video games, prosecutors said.

Both Lowrie, who is Hernandez’s cousin, and McNeill were charged with obstruction and lying to police.

McNeill waived her right to a hearing. Presenting evidence in Lowrie’s hearing, prosecutors said the man had lied to investigators about key details in the case.

Lowrie initially told police his name was Kyree Robison, a fictitious identity, and said Hernandez and Bean had taken the child to the ShopRite rather than leaving her at home.

And after Lowrie and McNeill were placed in the back of a police car, a device inside the vehicle recorded him urging her to repeat the lie about his name and other details.

Eventually, prosecutors said, Lowrie told police he heard “a baby being assaulted.”

Prosecutors also showed text messages in which Hernandez urged Bean to protect him as police began questioning her and others that month.

“You promise you got me, bae?” Hernandez wrote to Bean, according to prosecutors. He told Bean he would give her another child if she complied.

And as police closed in, Hernandez texted Lowrie: “I hate my life.” He said that Bean, who was speaking with investigators, was “the worst.”

Hernandez and Lowrie are expected to appear in court again in late May.

Conroy, the judge, said the case was “as worse as it gets” and ruled that prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence for the matter to proceed to trial.

But before sheriff’s deputies removed Hernandez from the room, the judge sought confirmation that Hernandez was indeed incarcerated at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.

“You’re at CFCF?” Conroy noted. “Good luck with that.”