She denied physically assaulting Christopher and said she could not explain how he suffered the fatal head injuries. The boy's head injuries could not have been self-inflicted, he said.īice spent more than a full day on the witness stand this week. Jurors viewed photos of his emaciated body taken after he died.Ī forensic pathologist determined Christopher died from blunt force brain trauma suffered within hours or minutes of his death, with caregiver neglect as a contributing factor. The boy reached a peak weight of 47 pounds in the spring of 2018, but his weight had fallen to around 40 pounds a few weeks later and he weighed just 29 pounds when he died. "We might not have Christopher's word about what happend to him, but we certainly have evidence that this defendant murdered Christopher Pratt," Assistant Ingham County Prosecutor Kristen Rolph said during closing arguments, noting the boy could not speak and was unable to tell anyone what happened.Īssistant Ingham County Prosecutor Kristen Rolph addresses Judge Clinton Canady, III, Wednesday, May 17, 2023, during the Jessica Bice trial. Christopher lost about 11 pounds over the last 10 weeks of his life and looked like a skeleton when he died, according to testimony. LANSING - The tragic saga of Christopher Pratt, a 6-year-old boy with special needs who died nearly five years ago, begins and ends with Jessica Bice, a paternal aunt who took him in after his mother died and his father was removed as his guardian, a prosecutor told a jury on Thursday.īice grew increasingly frustrated with Christopher, who couldn't speak or walk without help, and essentially starved him before inflicting head injuries that left him unresponsive on the floor of Bice's home in August 2018, according to the state's theory. Jessica Bice, right, appears in Judge Clinton Canady's courtroom, Wednesday, May 17, 2023.
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