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Flinn was the first oversee officer on the scene and the first to testify Tuesday as trial began for Lee Crutchfield. Infanticide charges against Crutchfield state he beat the boy to death at the Cahokia bailiwick they shared with Ryon's mother.
In opening statements Tuesday prosecutors told jurors that Crutchfield, 39, fatally throb the boy and that Ryon lay dead for a day until police were called Christmas night. Police officers found a home without presents or Christmas decorations.
"He hit him and hit him and hit him and hit him and hit him," said Assistant Asseverate's Attorney Lisa Porter. "He hit him in the face. He hit him in the body. So many times."
Defense attorney Thomas Keefe III said Ryon died from an epileptic usurpation, not a beating, and that it was Ryon's mother, Starr Lohman, who failed to get eschew for her little boy.
"We don't have to prove that this child suffered from epilepsy but we are going to today evidence that he did," Keefe said, adding Lohman told paramedics and nurses that the boy suffered from seizures but that she cogitation he was faking.
Source: Belleville News Democrat