LANSING — A 6-year-old boy was so thin on the day of his death, he looked like “a skeleton with skin covering him," police said.
Christopher Pratt, 6,
was found dead in August 2018 in the Lansing home where he lived with his aunt, Jessica Bice.
"He didn't look real," Lansing Police Detective Shannon Thielen said at a preliminary hearing Friday to determine if there was enough probable cause for Bice to stand trial on counts of murder and first-degree child abuse.
Christopher weighed just 29 pounds and was "essentially emaciated," Ingham County Medical Examiner Patrick Hansma testified.
He had multiple bruises and abrasions on his face, Hansma said, and a bruise just behind his ear that extended into his brain and caused his death.
These were not injuries Christopher could have inflicted himself, Hansma said.
Christopher, who was born in with a rare form of congenital chromosome 10 disease, could not walk unassisted and scooted across the floor to get around the home.
Any fall couldn’t have been from high enough to cause such a serious injury, he said.
Hansma ruled that the cause of Christopher's death was caregiver neglect and blunt force trauma, stemming from the injury near his ear.
Contradictions in the story
Multiple stories emerged as police began their investigation in the days following his death.
Hansma contacted detectives as soon as the preliminary autopsy was complete because of the bleeding he discovered in Christopher's skull. He believed the injury was from an "inflicted trauma."
Bice’s co-parent and roommate, Michael Fryman, initially told police that Bice said Christopher had thrown himself to the ground in the bathtub earlier that night. He said she showed him a bruise near his ear. At Friday's hearing, however, Fryman said he did not remember telling police that.
Bice denied to police that she ever spoke to Fryman about the injury. She told police she had no knowledge of the bruise, and that Christopher had not thrown himself down in the bathtub.
She blamed Christopher's emaciation on the boy, saying he had stopped eating in the months leading up to his death.
He lost enough weight in two and a half months that he went from a “flourishing” boy to someone who’s weight was so low it was “unchartable,” Hansma said.
Fryman said it seemed like he “stopped caring.” He didn’t want to eat or chew; he lost all motivation to do anything, he said.
But teachers at his school reported that Christopher ate voraciously — behavior of someone who was very hungry.
"Just looking at photographs, his appearance is just skeletal," Alderson said. "Someone changing a diaper every day would have noticed."
Bice is now set to stand trial for murder and child abuse charges. Her next court hearing is scheduled for Sept. 11.
Born with a congenital chromosome 10 disease, Christopher Pratt couldn't walk unassisted and scooted across the floor to get around the home.
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