Defense calls single witness in N.H. toddler’s death trial

DOVER, N.H. – Chad Evans’ lawyers rested their case Monday in the trial over whether he killed his girlfriend’s 21-month-old girl, Kassidy Bortner.

Closing arguments were to begin Tuesday morning.

Evans did not testify during the trial. His lawyers called only one witness, a physician who testified that the fatal injury was caused before the child was found dead.

The defense contends Kassidy’s baby sitter was responsible for Kassidy’s most serious injuries.

Evans, 30, is charged with second-degree murder and assault. He was living with Kassidy’s mother in Rochester when the girl died in November of last year at a baby sitter’s home in Kittery, Maine.

The child’s mother, Amanda Bortner, 20, of Rochester is charged with child endangerment. Prosecutors say she knew about the abuse but did not try to stop it. She will be tried later.

The defense on Monday called Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic expert from New York.

“I think that Kassidy Bortner died as a result of multiple injuries over a period of time, with the final injuries occurring shortly before she was found dead,” Baden said.

He said the critical injury was inflicted “minutes to an hour” before her death, he said.

Kassidy and her mother lived with Evans for about three months before her death on Nov. 9, 2000.

On the morning she died she was taken to the home of her aunt Jennifer Conley and Conley’s boyfriend, Jefferey Marshall, who was alone with Kassidy for about three hours before her death.

Throughout the trial, the defense has maintained it was Marshall who inflicted the fatal blows.

Baden did not dispute Maine Chief Medical Examiner Margaret Greenwald’s autopsy testimony that the child’s bruises were inflicted eight to 18 hours before Kassidy’s death but said such ranges are estimates.