Bedroom fixed up after boy died: Police

Jeffrey Baldwin’s filthy, urine- stained bedroom underwent a “ dramatic change” soon after his death: The lock on the door was gone, the walls were painted blue and the room was filled with toys, a former police officer has recalled.

Michael Davis, at the time a detective sergeant with the Toronto police force, testified yesterday that when he went back to the house after Jeffrey died on Nov. 30, 2002, he saw that the room had been freshly painted and there was pink trim around the door. He had gone to the house with a search warrant to look for the lock that had been used to keep Jeffrey and his sister in the room at night.

Davis told prosecutor Beverley Richards that when he asked Elva Bottineau, Jeffrey’s grandmother, for the lock, she snapped at him, saying: “ It’s not a lock. I’ll get it.” He said she returned shortly afterwards with a “ locking mechanism” — a hook and an eyelet.

Bottineau, 54, and her common- law husband, Norman Kidman, 53, are charged with first- degree murder in the death of 5- year- old Jeffrey, who had withered away in the last two years of his life from malnourishment. The official cause of death was septic shock, where his body was too weak from hunger to fight off bacterial pneumonia. The couple has also pleaded not guilty to the unlawful confinement of Jeffrey’s sister. A diary kept by Bottineau was seized by Davis and presented as evidence at the trial, being heard without a jury.

In it, Bottineau described how she had strong feelings of affection for Jeffrey’s younger brother, calling him a “ young man who stole my heart.” She wrote that she thought of him more as her son than her grandson. The trial has heard how that child and his oldest sister were seen by their grandparents as “ the good kids,” while Jeffrey and his other sister were “ the bad ones.”

In the July 23, 1999 entry, Bottineau wrote that if anything were to happen to her and Kidman, she would want the “ good” children to live with her daughters. As for Jeffrey and his sister, Bottineau wrote: “ If they are old enough they can go on their own. Neither aunt wants these two because of the disgusting habits they have — inbeded ( sic) in them — from ( their parents) — raised to be little pigs and can’t behave them selfs ( sic).” The trial has heard how the grandparents gave up trying to toilet train Jeffrey and kept him locked in his room in the evenings, letting him out around noon most days.

At times, Jeffrey drank water from the toilet bowl or the dog bowl by the door, the trial has heard.

Davis told Richards that on one wall of the east- end home were six diplomas that Bottineau, described as being of marginal intelligence, earned through an Internet school. One diploma was for child psychology, while two others were for police sciences and legal assistance.

Davis is expected to be the final Crown witness at the trial, which resumes today.