* Woman testifies of watching toddler being beaten before death * Father on trial today in toddler's death
Temeika Loudermilk describes the abuse she saw inflicted on 18-month-old Chavira Brown by her boyfriend Jonell Lloyd. Lloyd is on trial this week charged with first-degree murder
Chavira Brown lived for hours after being beaten, put in trash bags and left in an attic for dead.
A forensic pathologist was able to tell that from examining the body of the 18-month-old, after crime scene investigators found her last July.
Ron Distefano testified Wednesday about the cause of Chavira's death in the murder trial of Jonell Lloyd at the Sedgwick County Courthouse.
Lloyd's defense lawyer is pointing to his live-in girlfriend, Temeika Loudermilk, as the one who caused the abuse that killed Chavira.
Loudermilk was visibly upset in court as she entered her second day of testimony.
"Would you stop looking at me?" she asked Lloyd from the witness stand.
Lloyd's lawyer, Alice Osburn, had pressed Loudermilk about her reluctance to tell police what she told a jury on Tuesday that she saw Lloyd beat and choke Chavira.
Lloyd had thought of himself as Chavira's father, although her mother has said he could have been one of two possible dads.
Loudermilk had given birth to another of Lloyd's children and was five months pregnant when Chavira died. But Loudermilk testified that Lloyd having a child with another woman didn't bother her.
When police showed up looking for Lloyd and the missing girl, Loudermilk said she hadn't seen Lloyd in months. Police arrested her for obstruction and took her two children into custody.
She spent hours being interviewed by police at City Hall before telling them they could find Chavira in the attic of the house she shared with Lloyd at 15th and Green.
Loudermilk said a social worker told her she might get her children back through her cooperation. Osburn also pointed out that police told Loudermilk she would lose her children if she didn't talk to them.
Soon after hearing that, Loudermilk identified Lloyd as Chavira's abuser.
Osburn also said Loudermilk brought new details to court this week, when she testified Lloyd said he would kill her.
"Is that the first time you'd told anyone that Jonell threatened to kill you?" Osburn asked.
"Yes," Loudermilk said.
Prosecutor Kim Parker portrayed Loudermilk's initial silence as a sign of trying to protect herself and her own child.
Parker asked Loudermilk why she stayed in a bedroom, as she heard Chavira crying.
"I was scared," Loudermilk said.
Loudermilk said she kept her own son, then 5 months old, in the bedroom away from Lloyd.
She had reason to fear Lloyd. A year before, he had shot her in the foot.
During that case, Loudermilk had talked to Lenny Rose, a Wichita police detective. When police were questioning Loudermilk about what happened to Chavira, they called in Rose.
He watched as Loudermilk resisted questions.
"I felt she was holding back," Rose testified.
Talking to Rose, Loudermilk said that Lloyd had beaten and choked the child. Rose said she also told him she thought Lloyd had put the baby in the attic.
"She was crying and shaking," Rose said.
Crime scene investigator Natalie Rowe climbed up into the attic of the house and found a sofa cushion zipped shut.
Inside the cushion were two trash bags. Inside the bags was Chavira.
At the autopsy, Distefano noted multiple bruises across Chavira's face. But the doctor said the first clue to her prolonged death was swelling in her brain.
When people don't get enough oxygen, it can cause their brain to swell, Distefano said. But that takes hours.
What Distefano couldn't say was whether Chavira had been conscious during the time it took her to die. A sudden injury could have proved grave, he said, but her body kept breathing.
Osburn asked on cross-examination whether there were any injuries associated with choking.
Distefano said he didn't find any injuries to the front of her neck. But he also told the jury that it wasn't unusual for choking to leave no marks, "particularly in a child."
This guy, Lloyd, used to be in the facility where I work. On the stand, they asked him if he ever beat his dogs, and he said, "Never." I guess his dogs were more valuable to him for pit fighting than his little girl.This case just makes me sick (as do any of the child cases), but I can't get the picture of that little girl stuffed in a sofa cushion out of my head.
