Wecht says child’s death could have been caused by shower brush
Allegheny County Forensic Pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht testified Wednesday in Fayette County Court that items like a wooden shower brush and a ring worn by accused killer Franklin Weimer could have caused the injuries that killed 2-year-old Zachary Johnson. The toddler, in Weimer’s care while his mother worked on Jan. 24, 1998, died in Children’s Hospital two days later. Prosecutors allege that Weimer beat the child with the shower brush and may have hit the child while wearing a ring. He’s on trial for killing the child.
Wecht performed an autopsy on Johnson the day that he died and noted injuries to the child’s head on the right side and rear, the forehead and in the area of the left ear. He testified that he believed the child was struck a minimum of four times. Shown pictures of the child’s face, Wecht testified that the bruises on the right rear and forehead could have been the result of a blow with a hand.
The injury to the right side of Johnson’s face, testified Wecht, had a block-like configuration that could have been caused by an instrument such as the shower brush police took from the Hopwood home that Weimer shared with the boy’s mother, Julie Johnson Marinelli.
Mark Rambo Jr., not Weimer, was the child’s father.
In expectation of upcoming defense testimony, Assistant District Attorney Mark Mehalov asked Wecht if Johnson could have been injured if he hit his head into a wall, a table or both.
Wecht said that hitting those objects could explain some of the bruises, but could not account for all of them.
A medical expert testifying for the defense is expected to testify that Johnson received the fatal injuries when he hit his head at the same time on a wall and the table leg.
Weimer’s lawyer, George Matangos, has maintained that Johnson’s death was accidental.
Matangos, on cross-examination, asked Wecht if the injury was contrecoup in nature. Contrecoup means that the brain is injured on the opposite side of an impact, as is the basis of the medical defense.
While he acknowledged that Johnson’s brain trauma had some elements of a contrecoup injury, Wecht testified that such an injury relates only to the brain, and not to outside bruising. He testified that if Johnson had such an injury, he would not have bruising all around his head.
State police troopers who questioned Weimer in the days after Johnson was injured also testified Wednesday. Weimer, testified police, repeatedly told them the toddler was hurt in a fall down three steps. That is also what he told a 911 operator when he first called for medical attention.
During a three-hour interview at the barracks on Jan. 26, trooper Donald S. Lucas testified that he and another trooper confronted Weimer with autopsy results that proved the toddler could not have been hurt that way.
Lucas testified Weimer told police between eight and 10 times that Johnson fell down the steps.
So troopers showed Weimer the brush prosecutors now allege he used to beat the toddler the evening of Jan. 24, after the boy’s mother left for work shortly after 11 p.m.
“We asked him if the brush matched the injuries (the Johnson’s face and head),” testified Lucas. “He said they appeared to be similar.”
Weimer, however, maintained he did not hit the child.
Then, testified Lucas, Weimer indicated that he wanted to tell investigating trooper David Simpson the story of what really happened that evening.
With Simpson in the room, Lucas testified that Weimer told police that Johnson woke up shortly after his mother left for work, and the two of them played. At one point, Weimer reportedly told police that he picked up Johnson by one hand and one foot, and swung him around like an airplane.
As he was doing that, Lucas testified Weimer told police he got dizzy and accidentally hit Johnson’s head into a wall. Then, Weimer reportedly told police that he dropped the toddler and fell on top of him.
“We indicated to him that a single blow into the wall didn’t seem to match the injuries as described by medical personnel,” testified Lucas.
Weimer, he testified, maintained that was what happened and made no mention of Johnson hitting his head on a table leg, as the defense will allege through its medical experts.
At the end of testimony for the day, Judge Gerald R. Solomon ruled that prosecutors could not send several autopsy photos out with the jury because they were too gruesome and could possibly prejudice the panel.
The judge did, however, agreed that photos of Johnson after the autopsy cuts had been sutured shut could be sent out with the panel. Noting that the child “appears to be asleep” in those enlarged photographs, Solomon said he felt the pictures were of “essential evidentiary value” to the jury.
“To eliminate these photographs from the commonwealth would be to remove from the jury the ability to see the marks that were explicitly referred to by Dr. Wecht,” said Solomon.
This is Weimer’s second trial in Johnson’s death. The 33-year-old Hopwood man was convicted of third-degree murder and child endangerment in a prior trial, but the state Superior Court ordered a new trial for Weimer. The high court ruled that Solomon, who heard the case in 1998, should have allowed a defense medical expert to testify in Weimer’s behalf at his first trial. Solomon ruled the expert could not testify because Weimer’s attorneys did not notify prosecutors until the day the doctor was to take the stand.
Assistant District Attorney Jack R. Heneks Jr., who prosecuted that case and is co-prosecuting this case, argued that the last minute witness violated court rules and Solomon agreed.
Although prosecutors sought a first-degree murder conviction against Weimer during that trial, he was convicted of third-degree murder. That means that the most he can be convicted of in this trial is third-degree murder.
After his earlier trial, Weimer was sentenced to 22 1/2 to 45 years in prison. He is currently free on bond.
Testimony is expected to pick up at 9 a.m. this morning, when trooper David Simpson, who filed charges against Weimer, will take the stand. He is the last prosecution witness and defense testimony is expected to start once Simpson’s testimony is completed.