Man guilty of murder hurls F-bombs at judge

Prosecutors said Jacob Scott Hughes went into a ballistic rage in 2012 and beat his girlfriend's 17-month-old daughter so severely she died the next day.

Hughes told a consistent but different story to police. He said the girl, Eloise, fell from a bathtub and that caused her deadly injuries.

After a four-day trial that relied heavily on technical evidence, such as Facebook messages and pictures, to crack the 25-year-old Nashville, Tenn., man's story, a jury on Thursday found Hughes guilty of all four charges against him.

And then Hughes showed the rage that prosecutors said killed Eloise.

"Just leave. Just go," Hughes said, waving for his sobbing mother, father and sister to leave Judge Mark Fishburn's courtroom. Hughes cursed at a court officer. He asked what anybody could do to him since he's facing a life sentence for the murder conviction.

Fishburn said the outburst would be taken into account at a sentencing hearing.

Hughes then launched into an onslaught of expletives. He pointed at the judge and prosecutors and other court staffers. "F--- you, f--- you, you're cool, you're cool. F--- all y'all," he said to them.

Hughes' family sat across the courtroom from his former girlfriend's family.

The day before Eloise's death, Hughes dropped his girlfriend, Neena Constanza, off at her job at Sonic. He took Eloise back to their apartment. They were alone for about three hours.

He told police he gave the girl a bath and Eloise got sick. He told police he left the bathroom to get bleach and heard three thuds. Eloise was injured. He tried to resuscitate the girl.

Without a phone, Hughes sent a Facebook message to his girlfriend at work and said Eloise wasn't breathing right.

"He didn't ask for 911 to come. He didn't ask for emergency care," Assistant District Attorney Jan Norman said in closing argument Thursday.

Costanza got a ride home and called 911 on the way. First responders found Eloise unresponsive on the bathroom floor. No one was around her, a firefighter testified.

Costanza was also charged in the case. She pleaded guilty in April 2014 to charges related to failing to protect her daughter. She is serving a 20-year sentence with a chance of parole after six years.

Evidence presented by prosecutors poked holes in Hughes' story that the injuries were accidental. Two doctors testified at trial. According to prosecutors' summary in closing arguments, the doctors said that Eloise suffered 35 injuries, including five or six that caused bleeding in her brain and that could not have been from a short fall from a bathtub.

The case also relied on technical evidence: Photos and messages Hughes sent on Facebook during the time he was alone with Eloise that show him getting angry, and photos of Eloise with injuries that do not match the timeline Hughes told police.

Prosecutors said Hughes had been arguing with Costanza and was upset a friend had cancelled their plans to get tattoos.

Grover Collins, Hughes' attorney, argued in closing that officials' assumptions created a "domino effect" in the case. He said first responders who found Eloise alone assumed abuse had taken place, prompting a police investigation that only followed leads that would support that theory.

The jury did not agree. Hughes was found guilty of aggravated child abuse, aggravated child neglect and two counts of felony murder. Tennessee law requires life in prison for the murder convictions. Hughes is scheduled for sentencing Nov. 9.