NEW BOSTON, Texas-A 4-year-old boy who died of severe head trauma in March was covered in bruises and strap marks in the final days of his life, witnesses testified Wednesday in the first day of a capital murder trial in Bowie County.
Benearl Jermane Lewis, 25, is accused of causing the traumatic head injury that ended the life of little D'Money Lewis earlier this year. Wednesday, the jury heard testimony from about a dozen of the state's witnesses, including D'Money's older brother, now 7.
The brother was the last witness the jury of nine women and three men heard from Wednesday afternoon and he testified via closed circuit television. The move spared the youngster the trauma of seeing his accused father and of having to answer questions in a crowded courtroom.
Under questioning from Assistant District Attorney Lauren Richards, the brother testified that a caved in area on a partition wall dividing the family home's kitchen was caused when Benearl Lewis threw D'Money against it. The boy said he and his brother had been doing push-ups earlier in the day as punishment and that his father had two belts he used.
Under cross examination by Texarkana lawyer Derric McFarland, the boy agreed that D'Money had fallen or jumped off of a chest freezer but said that his mother was at home when that occurred. Both Lewis and D'Money's mother, Khadijah Wright, allegedly told investigators that a fall from the freezer is what caused the massive injury to their son's brain.
"No," replied Medical Examiner Candice Shoppe when asked by Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp if the boy's brain injury could have been caused by a fall from the 34-inch tall freezer.
Shoppe testified that the injuries she documented during D'Money's autopsy were inconsistent with the parents' account involving the freezer. She said D'Money's brain suffered bleeding and swelling that caused his brain to herniate partially out of his skull and into his spinal column.
The medical examiner told the jury about damage she found in the boy's abdomen where blunt force had cause internal hemorrhaging.
"This is evidence of a second impact," Shoppe testified. "He was hit by or hit against at least two different things. It took a lot of force to get that kind of bleeding."
Shoppe testified that she found unusual scars on the insides of D'Money's thighs, a significant bruise on his back and linear marks on his legs.
"When taken together, these appear intentionally inflicted," Shoppe testified. "These are not consistent with normal activity of a child of this age."
Witnesses testified that child welfare officials in Texas and Arkansas were involved with the family. A former Arkansas Department of Child and Family Services investigator said she interviewed D'Money in December 2016 at his grandmother's home in Texarkana, Ark.
Michelle Neal said D'Money told her his father whipped him with a belt.
"He would not make a statement until his mother wasn't around," Neal said. "When he spoke, it was almost in a whisper, like he didn't want anyone else to hear."
Neal said she attempted to follow up with her counterparts across the state line after the family moved to Texas.
D'Money's former pre-school teacher and assistant elementary school principal testified that they independently called the child abuse hotline Feb. 20, just weeks before D'Money died. Teacher Makki Currie said D'Money came to school that morning with a swollen eye, and when she asked him what happened, he told her it happened in the school cafeteria. When Currie pressed further, pointing out that D'Money hadn't been in the cafeteria, the boy allegedly told her he had been instructed to say that by his parents but had actually been hurt during a "whooping" from Benearl Lewis.
Currie said that later that day she touched the top of D'Money's head and he winced because he had a tender bruise there as well. Wake Village Elementary School Assistant Principal Andrew McCarter testified that he called the child abuse hotline Feb. 20 as well. McCarter said he was never notified by Child Protective Services that a care plan was in place forbidding Benearl Lewis to be alone with D'Money, his older brother, younger brother and younger sister. McCarter said Lewis picked D'Money up from school Feb. 20. Currie said she was not contacted by anyone from CPS regarding her call to the abuse hotline.
In opening statements, Richards said that Lewis was not supposed to be alone with his children and was not to spend the night in the family's home as part of a CPS care plan. Mary Popkiss said Wright had mentioned the care plan while the two worked across a table from one another at Mayo Manufacturing. Popkiss said that on the afternoon of March 6, Wright uncharacteristically sped off in her car at about 2 p.m., hours before their shift was scheduled to end at 5:30 p.m. and that Wright did not clock out.
Two hours later Texarkana, Texas, Police Officer Brent Hobbs was sitting in his cruiser working a traffic accident on Seventh Street when a white SUV pulled up next to him. Hobbs testified that Lewis walked up to his unit and asked for a hospital escort. Hobbs flew into action when Lewis told him there was a child in the car who wasn't breathing.
Video and audio from Hobbs' body camera was played for the jury. Hobbs immediately radios for the fire and emergency medical personnel who were just leaving the accident scene to return. Chaos ensues as firemen attempt to find a surface on which to lay D'Money's breathless and motionless body and perform CPR. An ambulance carrying a car accident victim returns to the scene, and paramedics begin working with the firemen to revive the boy. A second ambulance eventually arrives and carries D'Money to Wadley Regional Medical Center.
Multiple members of the Texarkana, Texas, Fire Department including Marty Lawrence, Brad McKinnon and Mike Norwood testified that Lewis' calm demeanor struck them as unusual given the circumstances. The witnesses testified that Wright was crying hysterically.
"There was no emotion whatsoever. None," Norwood said. "It was like he was watching TV."
Emergency room physician Mark McCrary testified that he realized D'Money's prognosis was grim after scans revealed the bleeding and swelling in the boy's brain. McCrary said the bruises and marks he noted in other areas of the child's 46-pound body did not comport with the parents' explanation. D'Money died within 48 hours of being airlifted to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock.
Jody Stubbs of the Wake Village Police Department and interim Police Chief Todd Aultman testified that they found the parents' account incredulous. Wake Village investigators were called because the parents claimed D'Money was hurt at their home on Redwater Street in Wake Village. Stubbs choked up briefly as he spoke of the bruises he saw on D'Money and the lack of concern he felt coming from Lewis.
Aultman testified as the jury was shown photographs of the chest freezer in the family's home and the crushed area on the wall that D'Money's brother later testified happened that day. Aultman testified that he collected a belt without a buckle from the kitchen table of the house and a second belt with a buckle was found in the living area of the home.
Fifth District Judge Bill Miller instructed the jury to return to the Bowie County Courthouse in New Boston on Thursday morning to continue hearing testimony. If found guilty of capital murder, Lewis faces life without the possibility of parole.