The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘I DROPPED HIM’
Chief medical examiner: Baby was alive before hitting water
MIDDLETOWN >> Baby Aaden Moreno was alive when he tumbled into the water after a 100-foot plunge off the Arrigoni Bridge, testified the chief medical examiner who conducted the autopsy of the infant whose father stands accused of his death.
Tony Moreno, 23 — who is charged with murder and risk of injury and could face up to 70 years in prison if convicted of the 7-month-old’s July 5, 2015, death — took the stand Thursday just before noon as the defense’s first witness. It was the fourth day of testimony.
“Did you intend to kill your son?” Moreno’s attorney Norm Pattis asked him immediately after his client was sworn in. “No,” Moreno replied. “What happened?” Pattis asked.
“I dropped him,” Moreno said quietly.
Pattis then went through the facts of the case, asking his client to affirm each statement. He then asked about Moreno’s frame of mind on the day of Aaden’s death.
Moreno told the jury Thursday that on July 5, his demeanor changed from the time he woke up.
“I started having issues with my depression later on in the day,” he said.
According to testimony from the psychiatrist who treated Moreno in the Hartford Hospital intensive care unit the morning after he jumped off the bridge near midnight in a suicide attempt, Moreno has suffered from depression for years.
He told Pattis that he had written four notes to Aaden about a week after he had received the co-parenting agreement from the court and Aaden and his mother, Adrianne Oyola, had moved out of Moreno’s home.
“What were you trying to convey (in the notes)?” Pattis asked.
Moreno had difficulty answering and began to tear up.
“I was just … I failed ... as a father,” he testified. “I gave up on life. I intended to commit suicide, so I was walking away (from Aaden).”
Moreno told the jury that he had gone out for a walk that night at about 11 p.m. with Aaden in his stroller, at first with no destination. He had packed the baby’s blankets and pacifier, his iPhone, iPad, portable charger, earbuds and a knife.
“I intended to use it later that night,” Moreno said about the knife. “I intended to use it on myself … to commit suicide.”
Moreno then testified that when he had texted Oyola, “enjoy your new life without us” and “you’re not a parent anymore,” he had been trying to scare her — and that Aaden was actually alive at the time.
At 11:45 p.m., according to testimony, Moreno texted Oyola the words, “he’s dead.”
“Was Aaden dead at the time?” Pattis asked.
“No...” Moreno told his lawyer. “I just wanted to hurt her as much as I felt hurt.”
Pattis directed Moreno to stand beside a white wooden replica of the 4-foothigh railing on the Arrigoni Bridge, handed him a baby doll and instructed him to hold it as he had held Aaden that evening. Moreno, who hesitated for a moment, appeared to have great difficulty even looking at the doll.
The defendant moved his right arm around the doll’s waist as his left hand cradled its bottom, then moved his right elbow, resting it upon the railing to demonstrate how he and his son had faced the Portland side of the bridge.
“Did you ever hold the baby up with his head above shoulder height?” asked Pattis, referring to earlier testimony from a witness who said she drove by at 35 mph and saw Moreno holding Aaden aloft for 10 to 15 seconds. “No,” Moreno said. “Why did you go to the railing?” Pattis asked.
“To find places to rest,” Moreno told him.
“What were you saying to (Aaden)?” Pattis asked.
Moreno stood in the courtroom at the railing for several moments, holding the doll, as he tried to answer, repeatedly closing his eyes and breathing deeply. He appeared so overcome with emotion that he could not reply.
“Were you speaking to Aaden?” Pattis asked. “What did you call him?”
“Booger,” Moreno said very quietly.
“You called him ‘Booger,’” Pattis said.
Because of the long pauses and difficulty Moreno appeared to be having in answering his lawyer’s questions, Judge Elpedio Vitale called for a 10-minute break at that time.
Once court resumed, Moreno again stood at the make-shift railing, this time crying.
“What did you say to Aaden?” Pattis asked.
In a quiet voice, Moreno said, “I told him that (the Portland side of the river) was where me and mom sat last year to watch the fireworks.”
“Then what did you do?” Pattis asked.
Doll in his arm, Moreno pivoted toward the jury, now with his left elbow resting on the railing. Using his right hand, still holding the doll, he pointed out the movie theater on the Middletown side, just as he said he had done that evening.
“That’s where mom and I had our first kiss,” he told the jury he said to Aaden.
“Did something happen with Aaden when you were talking about Justin Bieber and the movie and pointed with your right hand?” Pattis asked him.
Moreno began quietly sobbing.
“Did you lose control of Aaden at some point?” Pattis asked, a little louder.
Before Moreno could answer, the judge called for a one-hour recess.
Just after 2 p.m., when court resumed, and before the jury was called into the courtroom, Pattis appealed to Vitale, saying he and Moreno had reached an “impasse because of unforeseen difficulties” in his testimony.
“I’d like to have an opportunity to work with him this afternoon,” Pattis told the judge.
Vitale granted his request and adjourned court for the day.
Earlier, Chief Medical Examiner James Gill, who performed the child’s autopsy, took the stand to say his findings showed the baby, who was 2 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 20 pounds at his time of death, drowned in the Connecticut River. A 4-inch skull fracture, caused by the impact of his body hitting the water, also contributed to Aaden’s death, Gill told the jury.
After Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Eugene Calistro interviewed Gill about his autopsy findings, he entered into evidence a photograph taken during the examination of Aaden, clad in a diaper and part of the onesie he was wearing that night.
Calistro handed that photo,which was encased in a manila envelope, to the jury. Each juror slipped it out, looked at it and passed it along.
According to Gill, the “pale-colored mucousy froth” that had come from the baby’s mouth during the autopsy was consistent with his findings.
“When a person is submerged in the water when they are alive, the lungs continue to try to breathe,” he told the jury, and that process causes the lungs to “whip up a foamy material.”
The medical examiner concluded that Aaden’s death was a homicide, according to his testimony.
With that, the state concluded its case.
Defense testimony will resume Friday. With court closed Monday for the President’s Day holiday, Vitale said he expects the jury to begin its deliberations Tuesday morning.