The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Jurors hear 911 call in baby murder case
Witness, cops, suspect’s mother testify about fateful night on Arrigoni Bridge
MIDDLETOWN >> An East Hampton woman testified in court Friday that she saw a man holding a baby near the railing of the Arrigoni Bridge moments before he allegedly threw the 7-month-old into the Connecticut River and jumped into the water himself.
Tony Moreno, 23, is on trial for murder and risk of injury to a minor for the July 5, 2015, death of his son, Aaden. Moreno rejected a plea deal last year and chose instead to take his case to trial.
The first day of testimony was an emotional one. Jurors heard the 911 call made by Moreno’s mother, testimony from three police officers who were first on the scene and that of two eyewitnesses.
Moreno, who was dressed in a black suit with closely cropped hair and a small goatee, sat straight up during the
first part of the trial Friday. Once the 911 call made by his mother was played for the 10 female and five male jurors, he began to weep silently as his attorney, Norm Pattis, consoled him by rubbing and patting his back.
If convicted, Moreno could face up to 30 years in jail. Pattis does not dispute his client’s role in the infant’s death, but has said he will be seeking reduced charges of first- or seconddegree manslaughter. His motion to suppress the statement taken by Moreno in the hospital, where he was taken by Life Star after leaping himself into the water, was denied Wednesday.
Judge Elpedio N. Vitale, who presided Friday in Middlesex Superior Court, told the jury he expected the evidentiary portion of the trial to be completed within eight days.
Kimberly Parady, a respiratory therapist at the Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain, who was driving home to East Hampton around 11:41 p.m. on July 5, 2015, testified that she saw Moreno holding Aaden, who was clad in a white onesie, at shoulder height.
Using a similarly dressed, lifelike doll, attorney Eugene Calistro, who, along with State’s Attorney Peter McShane are prosecuting the case, asked Parady to demonstrate how she saw Aaden that night.
Parady testified she saw the baby for 10 to 15 seconds as she drove by the south side of the bridge, where Tony Moreno was on the sidewalk, while traveling at 35 mph, the posted speed limit. Parady told jurors she continued home and went to sleep.
The next morning, after seeing a news alert on her phone, Parady called police, she told the prosecutor.
“If you thought there was a baby in danger ... nothing you saw that night made you take it upon yourself to call police?” asked Pattis.
“I did not,” Parady replied.
Denise Moreno, who had gone to bed that evening at 9 p.m. with a migraine, was awoken by a phone call from her son at 11:38 p.m. He was crying, she said, her voice cracking while recalling the events of that night.
She told the jurors that because her son was upset, she could only make out some of what he was telling her.
“He said he was on the bridge and he wanted me to come to get his cellphone and stroller,” Denise Moreno said.
That’s when her son apologized, she added. “Just tell everybody that I’m sorry,” he allegedly told her — and the call ended.
The cellphone had photographs of the baby that her son wanted her to have, she said.
Denise Moreno, who, at moments broke out in tears and often paused before responding to questions, testified that she raced to the bridge, calling 911 on the way. Because it was so late and he told her he was on the bridge, “I assumed he might jump,” she said.
Once she arrived, she saw Tony Moreno on the bridge.
“I saw the look on his face,” she said. “He was distraught. He was upset. His eyes were puffy. I told him to put one foot in front of the other and keep coming. He said he couldn’t.”
Denise Moreno told the prosecutor that she believed her son had walked from their home near Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Middletown all the way to the bridge — just over 2 miles away.
Middletown Police Officer Austin Smith, who was the first on the bridge, testified that he saw Moreno look at him, “put both his hands on the railing and hurl himself over” into the river minutes after he arrived. “He went right down,” the officer said.
Aaden was nowhere to be seen, Smith said, but there was a black baby carriage with several blankets and some clothing in the seat, near the center of the south side of the bridge.
As police arrived, Denise Moreno and her younger son, Aaron Moreno, were on the bridge, Smith told the jury.
On the 911 call Denise Moreno made at 11:43 p.m., she can be heard pleading with dispatchers, asking them to tell Smith to let her cross the police tape to get to her son.
“Please, I can’t let him go,” she said. “He just called and said he was on the bridge and was going to jump. He has his 7-monthold son with him.”
Officer Andrew Wasilewski arrived next on scene.
“Tony looked directly at me and without hesitation, he ran toward the Portland side of the bridge, grabbed the railing with both hands and threw himself over,” Wasilewski said.
The jury also heard the police radio transmission, in which Denise Moreno can be heard wailing, “He jumped! He jumped! He jumped!” as an officer on the bridge repeated, “We don’t know where the kid is! We don’t know where the kid is!”
The baby carriage was empty, Wasilewski said.
Officer Steven DiMassa, who arrived at the riverbank on the Middletown side, said he was positioned almost right under the bridge and saw Tony Moreno, between 100 and 200 feet away, treading water for about 20 minutes.
“I asked him several times where the baby was. He looked at us several times, but never answered,” he said. “I asked him to swim to us. It appeared that he was trying.”
When the fire department’s rescue boat arrived at the shore, DiMassa asked Tony Moreno again.
“I went up, I got right up in his face and asked him were the baby was,” DiMassa said.
He never answered, DiMassa said.
After a two-day search, officials recovered Aaden’s body miles downstream near the East Haddam Swing Bridge.
The trial resumes Tuesday.