DENVER—Police had briefly removed a 7-year-old boy from a home five months before prosecutors say he died of dehydration and starvation, but he was returned to his guardians after telling a human services worker his injuries were the result of a fall.
A police officer testified Friday during the trial of Chandler Grafner’s 27-year-old guardian Jon Phillips that she asked Chandler during a welfare check Jan. 20, 2007, if he had breakfast.
“I’m bad, I don’t get things,” Denver officer Carrie Maestas quoted Chandler as responding.
Maestas responded to Phillips’ home after school officials reported Chandler had a bruised ear. Phillips and his girlfriend, 23-year-old Sarah Berry, are charged with first-degree murder and fatal child abuse. Berry is being tried separately.
Phillips’ defense attorneys say Chandler died of acute diabetes that went undetected.
After Chandler told Maestas he had been slapped, she took Chandler and his younger brother Dominick to a crisis center. Chandler’s bruised right ear, bump on the left forehead and other injuries on his face were photographed there.
Salwa Ramada, an emergency response worker at the center, testified that Chandler consistently told her that he had simply slipped in the shower.
“I asked him again and he said he slipped and fell in the shower,” she said. “Then he added, it wasn’t his dad’s fault.” Ramadan couldn’t get him to elaborate.
Ramadan testified she able to glean details about what was happening in the home from overhearing the conversations between Chandler and Dominick, who have the same mother.
They had been taken away from her and placed in Phillips’ custody. Phillips is Dominick’s biological father but he had no biological connection to Chandler.
“He said he wasn’t able to get a watch because he was bad. He had stolen candy from his mom and dad,” Ramadan testified.
“You also aren’t listening,” Ramadan also quoted Chandler as saying to Dominick, “and daddy asked, “why are you acting like me?”
The boys also described the discipline in the house, which included showers instead of the preferred baths, and eating “nasty” food, which they said was fish.
“At the time it did not seem like a child protection concern,” Ramadan said during cross examination as to why she didn’t seek to place the children in foster care.
Before returning them to their house, Ramadan said she took the children to the cafeteria so they could eat. She described Chandler’s eyes lighting up at the sight of the fully stocked refrigerator packed with spaghetti, pudding, hot dogs and other food and asked her for a little bit of everything.
She asked him to narrow his choice and eventually gave the boys two hot dogs, pudding, a bag of chips and milk. Chandler ate his food and also a leftover hotdog from Dominick’s plate. During cross examination she said the boys told her that police had shown up at the house before lunch.
Chandler weighed 34 pounds when he died in May 2007.
Dominick, now 6, took the stand Friday. When asked where his brother was, he answered: “In heaven.”
