A Cook County judge on Thursday convicted a woman of first-degree murder for the 2013 torture killing of her 8-year-old granddaughter, a straight-A student who was looking forward to starting fourth grade.

An outraged Judge Evelyn Clay found overwhelming evidence that Helen Ford, 55, killed and tortured her granddaughter, Gizzell Ford, who was nicknamed Gizzy.

"This murder was torture. That child suffered a slow and agonizing death," Clay said as Gizzy's aunt sobbed in the packed courtroom. "That little body looked like it had been pulverized from head to toe. ... Her treatment (of Gizzy) was evil."

The grandmother faces up to natural life in prison, since the judge found that she had tortured the child and that the murder was "exceptionally brutal."

'I hate this life' – Slain girl's journals focus of grandmother's murder trial Steve Schmadeke

In a rainbow-striped journal she'd scrawled her name on in pink marker, Gizzell Ford wrote about her love of school — the fun she had jumping rope, dressing up for a special day and even diagramming sentences.

Over the summer of 2013, though, the diary took on a much darker tone. The 8-year-old,...

In a rainbow-striped journal she'd scrawled her name on in pink marker, Gizzell Ford wrote about her love of school — the fun she had jumping rope, dressing up for a special day and even diagramming sentences.

Over the summer of 2013, though, the diary took on a much darker tone. The 8-year-old,...

(Steve Schmadeke)

In closing arguments earlier Thursday, prosecutors said that even before Gizzy was strangled, she was already dying of kidney failure because her grandmother and father deprived her of water and food for days.

"What happened to Gizzell was an abomination," Assistant State's Attorney Ashley Romito told the judge. "It makes you lose faith in the human race."

Ford's, lawyer, Jennifer Hodel, an assistant public defender, portrayed her client as an overworked grandmother who may have abused and neglected Gizzy but never intended to kill the child. Hodel asked that the judge instead find Ford guilty of involuntarily manslaughter.

In a front-page article Thursday, the Chicago Tribune detailed the harrowing account of Gizzy's death. The bright girl had written entries into two journals — excerpts of which were made public at her trial — that showed her mood took a much darker turn as the summer break of 2013 progressed and the abuse worsened.

Helen Ford Cook County sheriff's office

Helen Ford is charged with the murder of her granddaugher, Gizzell Ford.

Helen Ford is charged with the murder of her granddaugher, Gizzell Ford.

(Cook County sheriff's office)

"I hate this life because now I'm in super big trouble," she wrote July 11, two days before her strangled, badly beaten body was found clad only in a pair of torn green underwear in the family's West Side apartment.

Prosecutors say the 70-pound girl had been tortured to death, beaten from head to toe by a 275-pound grandmother who sometimes wore a belt around her neck that she used for punishment.

In addition to the two journals entered into evidence at Ford's trial, Cook County prosecutors played cellphone videos showing Ford and Gizzy's father berating her for breaking rules as the terrified girl was forced to stand — a sock or rag stuffed in her mouth. She was tied to her father's bed for days, denied food and water, and once punished for trying to sneak a drink from the toilet, according to testimony.

The father, Andre Ford, who had long been bedridden with chronic scleroderma, was also charged in Gizzy's murder, but he died in Cook County Jail of an apparent heart attack in August 2014 while awaiting trial.

The wounds to Gizzy's face were so severe that a Chicago police forensic investigator with 30 years on the job wept as she described them in court — a highly unusual display of emotion from a seasoned crime scene professional testifying at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.

"I'm sorry, this never happens," Officer Nancy DeCook said as tears streamed down her face after she viewed a photo of the dead child's badly bruised face.

Read: Lawsuit against DCFS in the death of Gizzell Ford Complaint lodged against DCFS and other parties in the death of 8-year-old Gizzell Ford Gissell Ford Complaint (PDF) Gissell Ford Complaint (Text) Complaint lodged against DCFS and other parties in the death of 8-year-old Gizzell Ford Gissell Ford Complaint (PDF) Gissell Ford Complaint (Text)Read the story

Gizzy's death marked yet another indictment of the state's beleaguered and chronically underfunded child welfare system, which has operated under a federal consent decree for decades. An investigator for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services had visited the family's West Side home a month before Gizzy's slaying, and a child-abuse doctor who examined Gizzy found a suspicious injury on her buttocks weeks before her death but did not report any suspected abuse, a Tribune investigation found.

A Cook County judge had awarded temporary custody of Gizzy to her father eight months before her death. The father, an unemployed felon who lived with his mother in the South Austin community, had argued the girl's mother was homeless and failed to get their daughter to school regularly.

Prosecutors played video — taken by Gizzy's father on the grandmother's cellphone — that illustrated some of the abuse taking place.

"She's getting defiant," Andre Ford could be heard saying while videotaping his daughter as she kept her head down and swayed from side to side. "She says she wants me to kill her. She also says she wants to kill herself."

"Stand up! Do your squats!" the father ordered Gizzy.

"You see how she's acting?" the grandmother said. "She lies about every single thing."

Another video played in court began with the grandmother saying Gizzy "made herself throw up" to avoid squats. A sock or rag was stuffed in the child's mouth.

"They're the most haunting images any of us will see until the end of our days," Romito told the judge in opening remarks. "She had a terrific smile, beautiful, full hair and wonderful penmanship. What Helen Ford did to her reduced that child to something completely unrecognizable."

sschmadeke@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @SteveSchmadeke

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