If you are concerned about a child being neglected or abused, call Maine’s 24-hour hotline at 800-452-1999 or 711 to speak with a child protective specialist. Calls may be made anonymously. For more information, visit https://www.maine.gov/dhhs/ocfs/cw/reporting_abuse.shtml.
The case of a Stockton Springs mother accused of killing her 3-year-old son, Maddox Williams, on Fathers Day 2021 will soon be in the hands of jurors, who must decide if she is responsible or if the boy died by other means.
Jessica Trefethen, 36, pleaded not guilty and claimed she did not abuse her children.
Closing arguments were made Tuesday morning at Waldo Judicial Center in Belfast. Jurors are expected to begin deliberating after hearing instructions from Superior Court Justice Robert Murray.
In her closing argument, Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea said that jurors must consider whether Trefethen’s efforts to avoid talking to police for three days was because she was grieving or because she did not want to admit to police what she had done to her son.
The prosecutor said that texts Trefethen sent to friends showed that she was trying to avoid police because she was guilty. Zainea told jurors that she told friends she needed a place “to hide out.”
The prosecutor pointed to the many bruises on Maddox’s arms, legs and head as proof that the boy was abused over time. She also said that the internal injuries are not the result of childhood rough housing or clumsiness.
“The conduct that caused the constellation of injuries showed a depraved indifference to human life,” Zainea said.
The prosecutor maintained that no one other than Trefethen could have caused her injuries.
“That’s your killer,” the prosecutor told the jury, pointing to Trefethen at the defense table.
But defense attorney Jeffrey Toothaker said in his closing argument that Zainea was asking jurors to guess about what happened to the boy. He said that Maddox could have fallen off the trampoline and been injured and Trefethen would not have known about that because she was inside the home.
“The police made up their minds in one minute and that was the end of it,” Toothaker said.
The police did not look at other suspects or consider other ways the boy could have gotten his injuries, Toothaker said. Toothaker also told jurors that Jason Trefethen did not like Maddox and did not care for him as he did the three children he had with the defendant.
“Sherry Johnson testified that the other children dragged Maddox around like ‘a rag doll,’” Toothaker said. “Jason [Trefethen] didn’t like Maddox because he wasn’t his child.”
Toothaker pointed to a multitude of studies going back to the 1960s that outline the injuries to children under the age 6. Those injuries included a spinal fracture similar to the one Maddox had, he said.
“Is the trampoline more plausible than the mother coming out of the house to stomp on the boy’s stomach?” Toothaker said, pointing out that if the answer was yes, that was reasonable doubt and a reason to vote not guilty.
The autopsy showed that Maddox suffered a fracture in his lower spine; bruises on his arms, legs, belly and head; bleeding in his brain; a ruptured bowel; a split pancreas and other injuries, according to a police affidavit. Maddox also was missing three front teeth. The Maine medical examiner’s office determined the cause of his death on June 20, 2021 to be multiple blunt force trauma that was inflicted non-accidentally.
Maine Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Liam Funte told jurors Monday that Maddox died of battered child syndrome. The medical examiner meticulously pointed out to jurors in autopsy photos every bruise and contusion on the boy’s body, supporting the testimony of Maddox’s maternal grandmother, Sherry Johnson of Stockton Springs, who told jurors on the second day of her daughter’s murder trial, Oct. 6, that the boy’s body “was covered in bruises from head to toe.”
Neither Jason Trefethen, who is the father of four of Jessica Trefethen’s children, nor Maddox’s father, Andrew Williams, were called to testify.
Maddox was one of four children allegedly killed by a parent last year, prompting a fresh round of scrutiny for the state’s child welfare system and an outside investigation into the deaths.
The killing of Maddox Williams happened in the same town where 10-year-old Marissa Kennedy was beaten to death in 2018 by her stepfather and mother, who also was pregnant at the time of her arrest. That case also sparked intensive scrutiny of Maine’s child welfare system, which received 25 reports concerning Marissa and her family in the 16 months leading up to her death, but didn’t confirm her stepfather and mother were abusing her until she was dead.
No one from the Department of Health and Human Services was called to testify about its involvement with the family at Trefethen’s trial but employees with the agency attended the trial.
If convicted of murder, Trefethen faces 25 years to life in prison. She also could be ordered to pay restitution for her son’s funeral expenses.