XPost: alt.fan.states.mississippi, alt.war.civil.usa, sac.politics   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: dei@liberal.style   
      
   A Harrison County jury took 45 minutes Thursday to convict Joseph David   
   Heard of capital murder in the beating and suffocation death of his 2-   
   year-old stepson. Afterward, Judge Larry Bourgeois polled the jury to   
   confirm the verdict. The jury will return Friday to determine whether to   
   sentence Heard, 41, to life in prison without parole or death for the Dec   
   27, 2021, killing of 2-year-old Hayden Lee Bataille. Heard’s wife, Hailey   
   Lynn Bataille Heard, 24, is already serving a life sentence in her son’s   
   murder.   
      
   The morning of the toddler’s death, Joseph David Heard repeatedly punched   
   the toddler in the gut and the head, and when the toddler cried out in   
   pain, his mother said, the beating only escalated. Joseph David Heard was   
   already angry that morning, two days after Christmas 2021, because the   
   toddler with curly blond hair had soiled his diapers overnight. The   
   torture began when Heard felt like the child took too long to get a juice   
   box out of the refrigerator after his bath. Hayden’s cries ended only   
   after his mother said she later walked into the living room of their one-   
   bedroom apartment, where the boy’s stepfather was still beating the child.   
   She testified that she put her hand over her child’s mouth and nose,   
   hoping he would stop crying and the beating would end. Hayden turned blue   
   and slipped from consciousness. He died of suffocation.   
      
   DENIALS AND BANANA PEELS FOR BRUISING Earlier Thursday, Heard testified in   
   his defense and repeatedly denied abusing the child. Instead, he said he   
   walked into the living room, saw the little boy wasn’t breathing and   
   started performing CPR on him to save him. Heard denied any culpability in   
   the crime or any of the abuse, even testifying that he never saw the first   
   bruise on Hayden’s body the day of the toddler’s death. But in body camera   
   footage from Biloxi police at the couple’s home, Heard acknowledges the   
   bruising and talks about how Hayden likes to play rough.   
      
   Heard said he had seen bruising on the child in the past, but his wife   
   told him the toddler had fallen off a bed or a couch. As Heard kept up his   
   denials, prosecutors pointed out how a forensic review of his phone showed   
   how he had searched online for ways to make bruises go away. When Heard   
   thought he had found a remedy, he texted his wife to tell her they could   
   use banana peels to make them go away faster.   
      
   ATTORNEY CLAIMS MOM KILLED CHILD An autopsy showed the toddler had bruises   
   — both old and new — all over his face, his head, his abdomen, his back,   
   and his legs, plus old and new broken bones and more. Joseph David Heard’s   
   attorney, Donald Rafferty, maintains that Hailey Heard caused the   
   toddler’s death when she put her hand over his mouth, suffocating him.   
   Assistant District Attorneys George Huffman and Mara Joffe are prosecuting   
   the death penalty case this week before Judge Larry Bourgeois.   
      
   In opening arguments, Joffe told the jury that Hailey Heard had been the   
   victim of repeated domestic violence by Heard and how her son’s torture   
   and abuse at the hands of his stepfather was a repeat occurrence during   
   the couple’s one-year relationship. “This is a case about control,” Joffe   
   said. “It’s about this defendant, Joseph David Heard, controlling his wife   
   Hailey Heard and his 2-year-old stepson Hayden through violence, through   
   abuse, and through torture.” The torture and abuse that Hailey Heard and   
   her son suffered, Joffe said, “was not isolated but was prolonged.” “They   
   had to do things his way or face punishment,” she said.   
      
   A 911 CALL, CHILD ABUSE AND TODDLER COVERED IN BRUISES When a 911 call   
   came in that morning about an unresponsive child, authorities said the   
   cause was first reported as a possible drowning. But when Biloxi police,   
   firefighters, and paramedics with American Medical Response responded to   
   the call on St. Mary Boulevard, they found the child fully clothed and   
   lying on the living floor. The child was not wet, Biloxi police said. When   
   AMR paramedic Mark Dillard arrived, he said Hayden wasn’t moving, then   
   gasped for air twice and stopped breathing. Dillard said that he noticed   
   extensive bruising on the toddler but kept doing what he could to revive   
   the child. A firefighter carried Hayden to the waiting ambulance, and AMR   
   rushed the child down the street to Merit Health hospital in Biloxi.   
      
   ‘MOST HORRIFIC SCENE’ The emergency room physician, Dr. Leanne Lee, said   
   she attempted additional life-saving measures on Hayden before pronouncing   
   him dead around 7 a.m. on Dec. 27, 2021. “It was one of the most horrific   
   scenes I’ve witnessed as an ER doctor,” Lee said. “I had never seen a kid   
   that had sustained so much trauma.” Lee described the extensive bruising   
   on Hayden’s body, along with broken bones in different stages of healing,   
   a burn mark and more.   
      
   The state medical examiner, Dr. Staci Turner, said an autopsy showed the   
   child died due to suffocation but had also sustained other significant   
   injuries, including swelling in his head. At the trial, Biloxi police read   
   aloud pages of text messages between Heard and his wife. In them, he often   
   sounded off about how Hayden had done something wrong and how he planned   
   to exact his punishment on the child. On some occasions, Hailey Heard   
   said, Joseph David Heard punished the child by making him stand up and   
   move his arms up and down repeatedly for hours at a time. At other times,   
   she said, Joseph David Heard made Hayden sit on his potty chair for hours   
   because the child had soiled his diaper. When Hayden got in trouble at   
   other times, Joseph David Heard told his wife he was going to hit her   
   son’s hand, which had a second-degree burn, with a rubber spatula. The   
   exchanges included repeated threats from Joseph David Heard to divorce his   
   wife. She begged him to stay, although she was the one who worked and paid   
   the bills.   
      
   https://www.sunherald.com/news/local/crime/article288378770.html   
      
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