Opening of Poutre trial hints at competing testimony

November 4, 2008 02:46 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Patricia Wen, Globe Staff

SPRINGFIELD -- Determining how 14-year-old Haleigh Poutre nearly died from violent head injuries inside her Westfield home may come down to dramatic, competing testimony from her younger sister and stepfather, who are expected to take the witness stand in the coming days.

Haleigh Poutre

During opening statements today in a case that sparked massive reforms in the state's child-welfare system and attracted national attention as an end-of-life battle, prosecutor Laurel Brandt said that 12-year-old Samantha Poutre will testify that she saw her stepfather, Jason Strickland, "push Haleigh down the stairs" in the autumn of 2005. After that violent fall, Haleigh "did not get up," Brandt said Samantha would testify.

The sister will also say that her mother, Holli Strickland, who was married to Jason, was near the stairs at the time, and the couple "tried to wake Haleigh" without success, the prosecutor said.

According to Brandt, Samantha will go on to say that her stepfather later took Haleigh's unconscious body from the bottom of the basement steps and into an empty tub in a first-floor bathroom. When the couple was unsuccessful in reviving the girl, they told Samantha "to go upstairs and be with her 2-year-old brother."

In the hours that followed, Holli and Jason Strickland, depicted by prosecutors as horrifically cruel to Haleigh, created a story that Haleigh had suffered a bad case of the flu, an explanation they voiced the next day when they rushed Haleigh's comatose body to a local emergency room.

Defense attorney Richard Rubin, however, told jurors that the stepfather, himself, will take the stand to explain that he was an honorable breadwinner of the family and left the running of the home to Holli, Haleigh's adoptive mother whom he met for the first time when Haleigh was 6.

According to Rubin, Strickland, a 34-year-old auto mechanic, will explain that he understood that Haleigh's many cuts, bruises, and burns came from a bizarre psychological disorder causing her to hurt herself, a condition diagnosed over the years by doctors, therapists, and social workers and written into medical records.

"She was a self-abuser," Rubin told the 14 jurors who wore sober expressions throughout the morning session. "She did things to herself that caused injury. "

Hampden County Superior Court Judge Judd Carhart did not allow defense lawyers to tell jurors in their opening statement that Strickland had heard about the psychological diagnosis from his wife, because Holli has died and is not available to confirm Strickland's claims.

The stepfather alone faces charges because, shortly after the couple was arrested on child abuse charges, Holli Strickland, along with her maternal grandmother, died in a murder-suicide in West Springfield. The details of those deaths have remained largely sealed, though details may emerge during this criminal trial, including alleged suicide notes left by Holli proclaiming her innocence.

Today's court session abruptly ended at 11 a.m. when the judge announced a "quasi-emergency" that had emerged, but that it had "nothing to do" with the case. The judge did not elaborate, asking simply that jurors return at 9 a.m. Wednesday. The assistant clerk later said it had something to do with a participant in the trial feeling sick, though he would not identify the person.

Since 2005, Haleigh has regained the ability to speak some simple sentences and is now living and going to school at a rehabilitation center in Brighton.

The prosecution and defense are expected to face challenges to the integrity of their key witnesses, and will use testimony from doctors, therapists, relatives, and therapists to bolster them.

For instance, prosecutors will have to explain why the sister had initially told police in September 2005 that Haleigh became unconscious after she had performed a back flip in the basement and hit her head on a pipe. The girl's testimony has also changed since the state's child-protection agency placed her in the custody of her biological father, Jonathon Poutre, who had bitter relationships with Holli and Jason Strickland.