By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com

Rosalie Uribe admitted in court testimony today that even after her live-in boyfriend Joseph Skates was arrested and charged with the murder of her son, she sent him pictures of her new belly-button tattoo and wrote him letters in which she referred to herself as the defendant's "Wifey."

Dawn Bladet, Sacramento County deputy district attorney, then asked Uribe, "And that's how you felt from the beginning, that he comes first and the kids come second?"

"Yes," a tearful Uribe replied.

Skates, 25, is on trial in Sacramento Superior Court for the death of Uribe's 3-year-old son, Manuel "Manny" Maciel. Skates was living with Uribe and her three sons from another relationship when paramedics were summonsed to her North Natomas apartment Nov. 7, 2008. Manny was rushed to UC Davis Medical Center, where he died two days later. A coroner's autopsy determined that he died of blunt-force head injuries.

Uribe has since pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges for leaving her children in Skates' care. She is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 26. She said she was promised a 90-day work furlough term in exchange for her truthful testimony against Skates.

In front of a nearly packed courtroom, Uribe testified that she confronted Skates about a month before her son's death and asked him about some bruising that the boy had suffered on his back.

"I asked him if he did that, and he said he'd never do that," Uribe testified. She said she gave Skates the benefit of the doubt.

"I didn't believe he had done it," she said, but, "I was still suspicious of the bruise."

Uribe said that Manny "adored" Skates when she started dating the defendant in the summer of 2008. But she said the boy became "stand-offish" and "distant" from Skates about the time the bruises were discovered.

At work at her job at Sam's Club, Uribe said she spoke on the phone with Skates about an hour after the boy was discovered unconscious in their apartment on Zurlo Way and that "all I remember is screaming."

It was during cross examination that Bladet showed the courtroom the pictures that Uribe sent to Skates last year after he'd been arrested. Some of the pictures were of her two other sons who have since been taken from her, and another was of the winged, flowery tattoo just below her navel and above her pink underwear.

She said she also sent Skates "a song" while he was in jail, along with more recent correspondence where she signed off as "Wifey Skates."

Call The Bee's Andy Furillo, (916) 321-1141.

Previous coverage:

Sacramento man goes on trial in death of boy, 3 - Jan. 29, 2010