Colin Eugene Russell
Four years after the death of a 3-month-old baby boy with multiple internal injuries, the man accused of inflicting the abuse that killed the child sat charged with first-degree murder in a Marion County Justice Center courtroom Monday.
Christopher Eugene Russell showed no emotion during opening statements when 12th Judicial District Assistant District Attorney Steve Strain described Colin Eugene Russell’s broken bones, internal bleeding and other injuries that Russell stands accused of causing.
The defendant likewise remained unmoved while defense attorney William Bullock responded that the murder charge is unfounded and grows out of incorrect findings by the inexperienced pathologist who did the autopsy on the dead infant.
Not so, for the members of the grim 7-man, 7-woman jury – which will be sequestered for the duration of the trial – who listened closely to both lawyers, as well as the state’s first witness: Russell’s former live-in girlfriend and the mother of the dead baby.
The charges against Russell grew out of an incident on June 17, 2012, when tiny Colin Eugene Russell stopped breathing and was taken by an ambulance to Grandview Hospital in Marion County, and then transferred to Vanderbilt.
Six days later, on June 23, 2012, after doctors told them the baby was brain dead, the family decided to remove him from life support and he was allowed to die.
A subsequent autopsy revealed bones were broken long enough ago for them to have begun to heal; blood clotting in the baby’s brain; and hemorrhaging in both of his eyes.
Monday, the baby’s mother – Leah Collins – said she was at work on the evening of June 17, 2012, when the baby stopped breathing and was rushed to the hospital. Russell, she recalled, was at home and responsible for caring for their child.
She didn't understand what was wrong with her baby, she testified. "We thought it was medical."
Ms. Collins said she had been on maternity leave for nine weeks following the birth of her 3-month-old son.
Russell – a long-haul truck driver – was working away from home when the time came for her to return to work, she recalled, so her mother kept the baby for her until he returned.
Russell was back home and helping care for his son by June 17, she said.
She told members of the jury that Russell seemed strangely unaffected after his son’s death.
He did not go with her to make funeral arrangements for their child, she said, “and he was an hour late for the viewing.”