The defense and the state both rested their cases just shy of a week after the beginning of the trial of Miranda Hopkins, a Troy mother charged with manslaughter in the death of her 7-week-old son Jaxson.
Hopkins, 32, was arrested last winter after calling 911 upon discovering her child unresponsive, cold to the touch and stiff. The official cause of death was listed as blunt force trauma to the head of Jaxson.
Hopkins told authorities she woke up to find her baby cold, white and “beat to hell.” She said it was possible one of her two older, severely autistic boys might have crawled into bed with her and the baby and crushed or suffocated him.
On the stand Monday however, Hopkins admitted that the story she told authorities after calling 911 was not true. She did not go to bed in her own room and wake to find Jaxson already deceased, as she had previously said. Instead, she said she fell asleep on the floor of her other sons’ bedroom with Jaxson asleep in the living room, not in her bedroom as she had said.
Hopkins initially told authorities that she must have “blacked out” and was “so drunk that she did not remember,” as she had drunk whiskey and had taken an antihistamine, according to a police affidavit. In her testimony she admitted to having drunk between five and seven shots of Fireball whiskey on Jan. 11, 2017, and taking Benadryl for congestion. She also said she smoked marijuana that day as well.
During her questioning by defense attorney Christopher MacLean, Hopkins stated she had lost a considerable amount of weight following her pregnancy with Jaxson, so her intention was not to get drunk. She said she put Jaxson in a chair in the living room, then felt ill in her other sons’ bedroom, feeling a “spinning” sensation. Eventually, she said, she woke with a gallbladder attack and went to the kitchen for an icepack, which was her remedy for such attacks.
She then turned on the lights, she said, and found Jaxson, cold to the touch.
“I was greeted by a nightmare,” she said.
A tearful Hopkins said she lied because she was afraid her two surviving boys, one of whom may have killed Jaxson, would be taken away from her.
“I can’t imagine them without me,” she said, wiping away tears.
“Did you kill your son Jaxson?” MacLean asked.
“No,” Hopkins said.
“Do you have any knowledge of what actually happened in your house that night?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
Hopkins, wearing a white sweater, somberly but in a composed manner recounted how a regular routine was important for her and her autistic sons. MacLean showed her photos of her family, including one of Jaxson in a new set of pajamas he was given for Christmas.
“That’s my Jaxson,” she said.
There were photos of Hopkins pregnant with Jaxson and the two other boys around her, of Jaxson less than a month old, and one of all three boys together.
“That’s one of my absolute favorite pictures,” she said.
There was also a photo of one of the boys with a cut above his eye, which Hopkins said the other boy had delivered.
She said she believed one of the sons may have killed Jaxson because he was asleep on the couch when she woke up.
Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea had begun the trial a week ago by saying Hopkins was responsible for the death of Jaxson by being criminally negligent. Monday she homed in on the fact that Hopkins lied to police following the death of Jaxson.
She began with the fact she told police she was a light sleeper and had she been in her own bed would have felt her other two sons crawl into bed to get to Jaxson. On Monday she admitted to Zainea that was not true.
She lied because she was afraid of what might happen to her other children, she said.
“So were you afraid for your boys or were you afraid for yourself?” Zainea asked.
“Both,” Hopkins said.
Hopkins told Zainea she took the Benadryl around 7 p.m., which is around the same time she stopped drinking for the night. She said she was prescribed medicinal marijuana.
Zainea said that Hopkins was “pointing the finger” at one of her sons for killing Jaxson, but then changed her story and implicated the other son. Both boys are severely autistic and nonverbal, with one boy being able to communicate slightly with a tablet.
“You never witnessed the boys harm Jaxson?” Zainea asked.
“That’s correct,” Hopkins said.
Zainea asked why Hopkins had “intentionally misled” officers after calling 911, and Hopkins responded that she was fearful of what would happen to her boys if she had told the truth.
“I was trying to salvage my family,” she said, adding that she was “scared of losing” her sons, and that it was her “mother’s heart” that made her lie.
“They wanted a detailed account,” she said of the officers, which led her to lie.
Closing arguments are slated to begin Tuesday morning at the Waldo County Superior Court in Belfast at 9 a.m.
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