Prosecution, defense witnesses testify

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

The murder trial of Christopher Peters heads into its fourth day in Van Wert County Common Pleas Court, with the trial expected to go to the jury sometime Friday. Peters is charged with the death of 15-month-old Hayden Ridinger on November 15, 2016, at The Old Lincoln Inn apartment complex on the west side of Delphos.

Thursday’s witnesses are expected to include the prosecution’s final witnesses, as well as Valerie Dean, the boy’s mother, who was subpoenaed to testify by defense attorney William Kluge. Whether Dean will actually testify, though, is unknown, since she also faces felony charges of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment in connection with her son’s death.

On Wednesday, the prosecution called four witnesses, with most of the time taken up by Delphos Police Detective Dave Clark and a video of Clark interviewing Peters after he was taken into custody in Fostoria on November 18.

Clark described his actions after being called out to The Old Lincoln Inn shortly before noon on November 16, 2016, while the video showed a rambling and sometimes nearly incoherent Peters talking about how he’d “take a bullet” for the dead boy, but also suggesting that the “blunt force trauma” the prosecution says killed Hayden was inflicted by a vacuum cleaner.

“The only thing I can think of is he pulled a vacuum on top of him,” Peters said during questioning by Clark.

Other prosecution witnesses included JoAnn Gibb, a forensic computer specialist at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation; Lori Braunschweiger, a criminal intelligence analyst at BCI; and Eldon Howe-Anderson, who was an inmate with Peters after he was taken into custody.

Clark also provided information on his initial interview of Dean, who he said was visibly upset after finding her son dead in his crib on November 15, 2016. Peters, who was the boy’s caretaker while his mother was working at Whirlpool in Findlay, was not in the apartment at the time.

Perhaps the most damaging witness was Howe-Anderson, who said Peters was upset by the boy’s death, and, at one time, said he wished he would get the death penalty “because I can’t stand living with what I did.”

The prosecution also made much of the fact that Howe-Anderson was receiving no compensation for his testimony, and even had to take off a day of work to testify.

Howe-Anderson did note under cross-examination, though, that people do sometimes do say things they don’t mean while in jail.

Gibb and Braunschweiger testified on text messages between Dean and Peters, including one from Dean that said he wouldn’t be at home when Dean got off work because he had to help a friend.

In addition to prosecution witnesses, the defense also called two witnesses out of rotation because several prosecution witnesses couldn’t be in court on Wednesday to testify.

Those witnesses, both employees of the Putnam County Department of Job and Family Services, were part of the defense strategy of deflecting the jury’s focus from Peters to Dean, who it painted as an unfit mother.

Defense witness Deb Booth did most of the damage to Dean’s reputation as a mother, noting that she had once said she didn’t want any children, and that “she’d rather have a dog than a child.”

However, she also acknowledged that Peters was also at the apartment when she attempted to talk to Dean concerning complaints of child neglect, and held up the boy at the door when she asked to see Hayden.

Judge Martin Burchfield told the jury on Wednesday that he hopes the remaining witnesses can all testify on Thursday, with closing arguments by both sides on Friday morning and jury deliberations to begin after that.

Peters is charged with aggravated murder, felonious assault, and child endangerment in connection with the death of the Ridinger boy in November 2016.