Police and rescue officers who responded to a Sylvania Township home where a dying 3-year-old child was found after his mother’s boyfriend called 911 were immediately skeptical of the boyfriend’s explanation for the child’s condition, testimony Tuesday at the start of the boyfriend’s murder trial showed.
But Kurt Bruderly, the lawyer for defendant Michael Kitto, said his client is unwavering in his assertion that the death of Declan Hill, 3, was indeed the result of the boy hitting his head on the floor after crashing into the end of a door while running through the house.
Mr. Kitto could be heard giving that explanation several times to police in a distraught voice on body camera video recorded by Kevin Pelwecki, a Sylvania Township police officer who was the second officer to arrive at the Oct. 6, 2022 scene in the 3400 block of King Road.
But Officer Pelwecki was then recorded as telling arriving detectives “it wasn’t a great explanation” because “kids are more resilient than that.”
And Sylvania Fire Lt. Roderick Standiford, who included an “abuse suspected” notation on his report from the response, testified that was based on his long experience as a paramedic/firefighter that even children who have fallen from second-floor windows or who have been hit by cars aren’t normally injured as severely as Declan appeared to be.
Mr. Kitto, 33, of Saline, Mich., is charged with aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault, and endangering children. Township police announced five days after the incident that Mr. Kitto had been arrested in Michigan after the Lucas County Coroner’s Office issued a finding that the boy’s death was a homicide caused by blunt-force head and neck trauma.
Besides the police officer and several firefighters, first-day witnesses Tuesday included Dr. Eric Rader, a 15-year Perrysburg pediatrician who said he had been the boy’s physician since birth but was not involved in the emergency care of his fatal injury.
Under questioning by Mike Loisel, the chief of special prosecutions for the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office, Dr. Rader said he often treats children injured during household hijinks, but has never seen a child die from a resulting fall.
“They’ll occasionally break a bone,” but more commonly they get scrapes, cuts, and bruises, the doctor said.
Dr. Rader said he had received a report from an urgent-care facility about a past “goose egg” Declan had gotten from crashing into a table while running in the house, but it was not considered serious enough to warrant a follow-up visit to his office.
Under cross-examination by Mr. Bruderly, the pediatrician said he had never seen any signs of Declan being abused. The boy had recently gotten poison ivy on his face and may have scratched the rashes enough to cause bleeding and redness, the doctor said.
In a statement to the township police admitted Tuesday as evidence, Lt. Standiford wrote that among facial injuries he observed on the boy, “it was difficult to tell which were rashes from poison ivy and which were bruises.”
In the police video, Mr. Kitto told officers he had been living at home of girlfriend Kelley McEwen for about six months. She was not home when the incident occurred.
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