But that’s exactly what Tyree Bowie, 43, did last week at a trial four years in the making because he said he had nothing to hide.
Accused of killing two-year-old Dante Mullinix, Bowie took the witness stand to give his side of the story and endure hours of cross-examination by prosecutor Tim Barker.
Bowie has maintained his innocence since September 2018, when Dante died. He said the boy, who he was watching as a favor to the boy’s mother, had choked on an animal cracker and that he tried to save the boy.
Prosecutors, however, say Bowie strangled and slammed Dante during the 90 minutes or so he was watching him, causing severe bruising across his body and eventually, death.
Three medical experts who previously testified at the trial, including two for the prosecution, gave differing opinions on the cause of the boy’s death.
Bowie told the jury he never saw the boy’s mother, Leah Mullinix, show affection to her son, Dante, during the time he had known them, which was about three weeks.
But Barker questioned him on this, showing selfies Leah took of her and Dante at the hospital of both of them smiling at the camera.
Leah had brought the boy to the hospital on Sept. 2, four days before he fell unconscious with Bowie, when he had a bruise on the top of his head and a raging infection from herpes that Leah had not properly treated.
Bowie said he noticed Dante’s eyes roll back into his head three times on Sept. 6, 2018, the day he went unresponsive in the back seat of his car while he was babysitting.
Bowie asked Leah about the odd behavior on the phone, which she described her son as being a “little bitch.”
“I told her she needs to stop calling him a little bitch,” Bowie testified.
Leah told Bowie that a former boyfriend named “Holiday” used to beat and molest Dante, and that she felt reporting those incidents would be unsafe for her.
When Dante died, he had a herpes infection but both Bowie and Leah did not have the sexually transmitted disease, according to prior testimony.
Prosecutor Tim Barker pressed Bowie on his inaction throughout Sept. 6, asking if he had considered asking multiple bystanders for help or calling 911 to report the bruises on Dante’s body.
Bowie said when he arrived at the hospital with Dante’s unresponsive body Sept. 6, he ran into Leah, who was there to get treatment for what she said was a migraine.
Leah was supposed to tell medical staff that Dante choked on an animal cracker, but she never did, according to Bowie.
When Bowie hugged Leah to comfort her, he told her to tell medical staff about the bruises and makeup used to cover preexisting injuries.
Doctors later found the boy had a broken wrist that was in the healing stages.
Bowie also explained that in his first interview with police on Sept. 7, he focused on the animal crackers and did not get a chance to say anything else because York City Detective Kyle Hower kept talking over him and accusing him of lying.
“From the beginning, they didn’t want to hear the truth. He called me a liar,” Bowie said of Hower.
When he talked to police again on Sept. 19, after Dante’s death, he elaborated on the makeup and bruises, he said.
Before Leah met Bowie, she lived with two other men. The family of one of those men, Albert Castro, took the witness stand to testify Tuesday. The Castros provided information that contradicted Leah’s testimony. They said she lied when she said Dante slept inside their home while she slept outside in her car. They said when the pair stayed on the Castro’s property, both slept outside in Leah’s car.
When Leah and Dante first arrived at their home in early August, 2018—before Leah met Bowie—they gave Dante a bath because he was so caked in filth and excrement, according to Arlene Castro, Albert’s mother.
Brian Sweeny, Arlene Castro’s boyfriend, said he tried to help Leah care for Dante. Sweeny said he repeatedly told Leah to take Dante to the hospital in August, and when she didn’t, even offered to drive her there.
He blamed himself on the stand for not taking Dante away from Leah and driving the boy to the hospital himself.
When prosecutors showed photos of Dante they said were taken at around the same time as the boy’s visit to the Castro’s house, three family members testified that the Dante in those photos did not resemble Dante they met. Because when they saw him, he was covered head-to-toe in bruises.
man-accused-in-boys-death-testifies-at-murder-trial-they-didnt-want-to-hear-the-truth.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resurce. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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