A young girl witnessed the murder of her brother in a Tigard homeless shelter.
And it was her account that helped convict their mother, 25-year-old Jessica Dutro.
If jurors believed nothing else, prosecutors said Wednesday, they should believe the girl. She watched her mom and her mom's boyfriend fatally beat Zachary Dutro-Boggess Aug. 12, 2012, the day before his 4th birthday.
"They beat up my brother, then he died," the girl told her counselor. "I seen them."
To a Tigard detective, she said, "Jessica and Brian, they kept hitting him and punching him. He didn't listen to them so they kicked him and punched him and stuff and they kept doing it and doing it. ... They knew he were sick and stuff. And they didn't tell anybody."
Washington County
jurors took a little more than an hour to reach a unanimous verdict. They found
her guilty on all seven counts, including murder, murder by abuse and
second-degree assault.
Dutro showed no reaction to the decision, read about 5:15 p.m. Wednesday.
The case drew widespread attention after prosecutors asked
the court to allow Facebook messages from Dutro into evidence.
In one message to her boyfriend, Brian Canady, Dutro wrote using a slur that Zachary would be gay. "He walks like it and talks like it ugh," she wrote. That made her angry, she added, and directed Canady to "work on" Zachary "big time."
Prosecutors told the court the message showed Dutro's motive for subjecting Zachary to a pattern of abuse. Judge Don Letourneau deemed the messages admissible.
News of the alleged motive went viral, and the case made national headlines. However, prosecutors didn't focus on the Facebook messages in their arguments to the jury.
The words of Zachary's sister were all jurors would need to find Dutro guilty, Senior Deputy District Attorney Megan Johnson said Wednesday.
But there was other evidence, too.
In closing arguments, Johnson reminded jurors of the photos they'd seen of the children's injuries and medical testimony.
Zachary was dying and could not be saved by the time he received medical care. Forceful, traumatic blows to his abdomen pushed his bowel against his spine, causing two intestinal tears.
When Zachary went to the hospital Aug. 14, 2012, doctors examined his siblings, too. His sister, then 7, and a brother, then 3, were covered in bruises. The boy also had five broken ribs. Only Dutro's infant son was uninjured.
When a doctor told Dutro that Zachary's injuries were the result of a violent assault, Dutro became upset. Angry, she reportedly told the doctor he should have shared his findings sooner.
Johnson recounted the doctor's testimony: Dutro, the doctor noted, said she and Canady had been made to look like idiots. Had they known Zachary's diagnosis before they talked to police, they could have gotten their story straight, she said.
His bowel leaking toxic pre-fecal matter, Zachary suffered extreme pain before his death, Johnson said. As he went into septic shock, he would have struggled to move. The child would not have been eating, walking, talking or acting normally. At one point, he would have been vomiting profusely.
His grave illness would have been obvious, Johnson said, and it was to his sister.
Defense attorneys argued that none of the evidence tied Dutro to the crime.
Canady pleaded guilty last month to first-degree manslaughter and second-degree assault for his role in Zachary's death.
Canady assaulted Zachary when Dutro was not present, defense lawyer Chris Colburn told jurors. She later learned that Canady had "accidentally" kicked the boy. But she saw no signs that Zachary was dying until the moments before she and Canady called for help.
In his closing arguments, Colburn brought up the Facebook messages and addressed Dutro's use of a slur.
What she wrote was meant as a joke, he said. It was offensive, not funny. But, he said, it would be ridiculous to draw a connection between the message and Zachary's death.
-- Emily E. Smith