The brain and neck injuries suffered by 7-month-old Lyla Stratton were not caused by a fall from her bed, but instead came at the hands of her mother during a day that “turned into a nightmare.”
That’s what Assistant Allen County Prosecuting Attorney Rebecca King-Newman told jurors Monday afternoon as opening statements began in the trial of Cheyenne Hooper, a 23-year-old Lima woman charged with felonious assault and endangering children in connection with injuries sustained by her daughter on March of 2019.
Hooper was indicted by an Allen County grand jury in December of 2019 on the two second-degree felony charges that allege she knowingly caused harm and abuse to a child under the age of 18.
Defense attorney Grant Neal said the case for jurors will be a simple one.
“Did Cheyenne Hooper do what she is accused of or didn’t she? Well, she didn’t.”
Neal said the events of that March day were “horrifying,” but were not caused by the defendant.
“You will hear more than enough reasons why the defendant did not abuse her daughter,” the attorney said.
King-Newman said the defendant’s baby daughter was living with her mother and biological father. Lyla’s father placed the baby in a playpen and left for work that morning, King-Newman said, “and then Lyla’s day turned into a nightmare.”
The prosecutor said the baby suffered injuries that morning that resulted in her being taken to Mercy Health-St. Rita’s Medical Center and then to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus. Among those injuries was severe bleeding of the brain, brain shift and severe neck injuries.
“The defendant says Lyla fell off the bed, but the doctors at Nationwide do not think that was an accurate story,” King-Newman told jurors. “They said Lyla could not have sustained those injuries from falling off a bed. The defense will attempt to convince you that the defendant’s story matches the injuries Lyla suffered, but that’ snot what the evidence shows.”
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