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Doctor Says Abused Child Was 'Skin And Bones'
Testimony Continues In Trial Against Man Accused Of Locking Boy In Closet, Starving Him To Death
POSTED: 3:46 pm MDT July 30,
2008
UPDATED: 3:47 pm MDT July 31,
2008
DENVER -- Testimony continued Wednesday in the first-degree murder case against Jon Phillips.Jurors heard from Dr. Marilyn Marr, a pediatric emergency doctor, and Amber Rowell, a former registrar at Swedish Medical Center.Both women said Chandler Grafner, 7, looked like someone in a concentration camp.
Grafner died May 6, 2007. The cause of death was a heart attack, according to an autopsy.Police said Grafner's legal guardians, Phillips and girlfriend, Sarah Berry, locked him in a linen closet for weeks. They said Berry and Phillips refused to give the boy food and water and forced him to defecate on himself."The only way I can describe (his appearance) is concentration camp, emaciated, his cheeks were sunken in, he had no fat in his lips, his eyes were sunken in, he was dirty," said Rowell.Marr said the same thing and said in her 14 years as a doctor she had never seen anything like it."He was skin and bones. His abdomen was scaphoid; it was concave, like a bowl. You could see all the way down to his pelvis bones. He had not one bit of muscle tissue on his body anywhere," said Marr.Marr said his rectal body temperature was 84 degrees, which suggested, "He had been down for a while."Marr said she asked Phillips about Grafner's emaciated condition and was told he had been suffering from flu-like symptoms but said he had been drinking Gatorade and eating oatmeal for a week and a half.However, paramedics testified Tuesday that his vomit was clear and did not have any appearance of food in it.Marr also said Phillips showed no emotion when she told him Grafner was dead.Thursday morning, a Denver police detective testified about the "tiny closet" that the boy was kept in. He said twine was wrapped around the doorknobs to keep Grafner from getting out.The detective showed photos of human feces in the closet and an air purifier meant to hide the smell.The defense has argued that Grafner's death was the result of an untreated medical condition known as diabetic ketoacidosis or DKA.DKA is a life-threatening complication in patients with untreated diabetes. It is known to break down fat in the body when a person's sugar gets too high. The defense said it caused the wasting away of Grafner's body.Marr was asked if she thought DKA contributed to Grafner's death to which she said,"no."Marr said she has treated or supervised the care of more than 80 DKA patients and while the conditions do leave them "ill-appearing and dehydrated," it does not leave them in the frail, emaciated state that Grafner was in.
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