JURY GETS CASE; NO VERDICT YET
Prosecutor says suspect ‘beat the hell’ out of Mason DeCosmo; defense lawyer says plenty of reasonable doubt exists
The five-man, sevenwoman jury sitting in judgment of murder suspect Kenneth Stahli deliberated for almost three hours Thursday without reaching a verdict.
The jury got the case about 1:40 p.m. and broke for the day at 4:30. The panel was to resume deliberations Friday morning in Ulster County Court.
Stahli, 27, has been charged with second- degree murder, with depraved indifference to a child, for the Aug. 5, 2014, death of 2-year- old Mason DeCosmo.
Prosecutors contend Stahli fatally beat the toddler in the Milton mobile home he shared with then- girlfriend Katlin Wolfert and her two sons, Mason and Jaxon.
In his closing argument to jurors, Ulster County District Attorney Holley Carnright, the prosecutor in the case, described Stahli as a manipulative liar who “beat the hell” out of Mason and blamed others, including Wolfert, for the boy’s injuries.
Public Defender Andrew
Kossover told jurors the prosecution’s case was filled with reasonable doubt and that he was “concerned that this case is a perfect storm confluence of events that could result in wrongful conviction.”
Kossover, Stahli’s lead attorney, reminded jurors that in statements to police, Wolfert vehemently denied Stahli would hurt Mason and described the boy as “always falling.” Kossover said that because a young child died, law-enforcement officials, looking to blame someone, developed “tunnel vision” and honed in on Stahli without having concrete evidence.
“A wrongful conviction occurs when police and prosecutors get tunnel vision,” Kossover said.
An autopsy report stated Mason, for whom Stahli babysat when Wolfert was at work, died of blunt force trauma and that he had more than 60 bruises on his body as well as numerous other
injuries, including bleeding on the brain, a lacerated liver and a pancreas that had been torn in half.
A medical expert called by the prosecution who did not perform the autopsy testified Mason bled to death as a result of the injuries.
Stahli was arrested and charged with murder the day after Mason died.
“We can all agree this is a sad, horrible, tragic story,” Kossover told jurors Thursday. “The DA wants you to believe that because Stahli was one of the primary caretakers and [Mason] was bruised, [Stahli] must be guilty. That’s a huge leap to take.”
Kossover urged jurors to listen to how Wolfert talked about Stahli, telling police he doted on her sons, read to them every day and cared for them when they were ill.
“‘He never touched my son — never, ever,’” Kossover said, recalling Wolfert’s words.
“But the people would have you believe the minute Katlin Wolfert walks out of the house, he turns into an infanticidal maniac,” he said. “Does that make any sense?”
Kossover also asked jurors to consider why the prosecution didn’t call Dr. Dennis Chute, the Dutchess County medical examiner who performed Mason’s autopsy, to the stand to testify about his opinion regarding the cause of Mason’s death. He also noted the prosecutor never called the lead investigator in the case.
“These are tells” of a case filled with reasonable doubt, Kossover said.
He also pointed a finger at Wolfert, calling her “a woman who minimizes every event that occurs to Mason.”
He reminded jurors that Wolfert testified she couldn’t get off work to take Mason to a doctor, though her supervisor signed a sworn statement on Aug. 12 saying she urged Wolfert to seek medical care for the boy. Dr. Jennifer Hammers, the New York City-based medical examiner called by Carnright as an expert witness, testified Mason might have survived if he had gotten medical care.
Kossover also said that while Stahli cooperated with police, never asking for an at-
torney, Wolfert did ask for a lawyer while being questioned. And he pointed out to jurors that, under crossexamination, Wolfert smiled as she testified until Assistant Public Defender MariAnn Connolly pointed it out. Then, he said, she began to cry.
“She turned on a dime because she behaves the way she thinks is appropriate,” Kossover said. “I submit to you it’s never been about Mason.”
Carnright, though, said Wolfert wasn’t on trial, and he urged the jurors not to follow “tangents.”
He also told them not to be fooled by Stahli’s appearance in court — clean shaven, wearing a blue dress shirt and tie and gray slacks — but to “look behind the mask” at the man he said lied and made up stories to try and explain away the dozens of injuries he inflicted on Mason.
“You are here to judge Kenneth Stahli, the guy who beat this kid to death ... not the man who sits over there in his blue shirt and tie and glasses,” Carnright said.
With a photo on a screen behind him of Mason’s battered body, covered with bruises, lying naked on a steel table, Carnright said the injuries told a story of brutality and torture.
“Mason did not have a lot of words when he was alive, but in his death, his small body, the injuries that he suffered, each one is his voice,” the prosecutor said. “Individually, they tell us a story of pain and suffering. Collectively, they tell a story of abject depravity.”
Carnright walked jurors through the testimony of witnesses who said they saw Stahli “slamming” a boy into a car seat a week before his death and saw Mason’s head “lolling” and eyes rolling on the day before he died, and also of how Stahli leaned on Mason’ abdomen so hard that he broke the bed because the boy had bitten Stahli’s finger.
“Mason didn’t die from a pillow fight,” Carnright said. “Mason didn’t die because he fell off a slide, Mason didn’t die because he tripped and fell.”
Standing in front of the
jurors, Carnright slapped his hand loudly 10 times to demonstrate only a few of the 69 hits he said Mason endured.
“This case is almost unique in its brutality,” he said
Carnright rejected the defense’s contention that on the day Mason died, he was acting fine, eating and “back to his old self,” as Stahli told police.
“Mason was dying,” Carnright said. “His pancreas was cut into two pieces, for Christ’s sake. He wasn’t eating. He was dying.”
He also urged jurors to decide if they believed Stahli when he told police Mason put himself to bed the day he died.
“If you look at the time of death by every reliable source, at 1:30, Mason’s dead,” Carnright said. “One theory is that he was dead when Mason was put to bed, and if he wasn’t dead, he was dying.”
Carnright urged jurors to not be distracted by issues raised by the defense about Wolfert’s behavior, saying that while he couldn’t “speak for her actions, she did not kill her son. She did not hurt that boy.”