Jury deliberates in N.H. tot’s slaying case

DOVER, N.H. – A man accused of killing a 21-month-old girl may not be humanitarian of the year, but he’s not a murderer, and prosecutors would have known that had police done their job, his lawyer said Tuesday.

“They got dealt a hand that just stinks,” Mark Sisti said of the state case during closing arguments Tuesday in Chad Evans’ murder trial. “A building is only as strong as the foundation it is built on, and this case crumbles from day one.”

Evans, 30, is charged with second-degree murder and several counts of assault in the Nov. 9, 2000, death of his teen-age girlfriend’s daughter, Kassidy Bortner.

Sisti blames Kassidy’s baby sitter, Jeffrey Marshall, for the murder, and says police did not thoroughly investigate him. Kassidy died at Marshall’s Kittery, Maine, home.

Prosecutors say Kassidy was subjected to months of systematic abuse at the hands of Evans, which included the child being thrown against a closet door. The reason, prosecutors say, was that the child’s crying frustrated Evans.

“The evidence of the defendant’s guilt is so devastating, so overwhelming, so clear,” Assistant Attorney General Simon Brown told jurors during his closing argument. “We know the defendant is capable of such brutality and we know he killed Kassidy Bortner.”

Evans faces up to life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder. Jurors recessed until Wednesday after deliberating for three hours Tuesday afternoon.

The girl’s mother, Amanda Bortner, will be tried later on child endangerment charges. She testified against Evans under a limited grant of immunity.

Prosecutors say Evans is a liar and is using Marshall as a scapegoat. The defense says Marshall is the liar and police rushed to judgment in suspecting Evans.

Sisti said Evans admits playing rough at times with Kassidy, including grabbing her jaw. But he said Evans also cared for her by bathing and feeding her.

“We’re not out here saying, ‘Crown him humanitarian of the year,'” Sisti said. “He’s ashamed of what he’s done. But that’s light years away from killing a baby.”

Evans did not testify. His lawyers called only one witness, a doctor who testified the child’s fatal injury could have been caused within two hours of her death, at a time when she was with Marshall.

“When she was dropped off, she was alive,” Sisti said. “She wasn’t cared for by Jeff Marshall. She had been beaten at that house. His testimony was a sham. Jeffrey Marshall is a liar. Jeffrey Marshall is protecting himself.”

But Brown said it was Evans who lied when he kept changing his story during three-and-a-half hours of interrogation by police before he was arrested.

Evans made wild claims about Kassidy injuring herself while

he was playing with her on a trampoline and another time when his 3-year-old son supposedly struck her with a baseball, Brown said.

“As absurd as the trampoline story was, the defendant topped himself with the baseball story,” Brown said.

Evans can’t escape the truth that the majority of Kassidy’s injuries only could have occurred while she was in Evans’ care, not Marshall’s, Brown said.

“He beat Kassidy Bortner to a pulp and because of that beating, she slowly died,” Brown said. “Recognize this defense for what it is. It’s the defendant’s only way out by pointing the finger at Jeff Marshall.”