An Oregon mother and her boyfriend have been charged with the murder of her son.
Jessica Dutro and Brian Canady, both 25, have been charged with the murder of Dutro’s 4-year-old son, Zachary Dutro-Boggess. The prosecution asserts that the child was murdered because his mother believed he was gay.
According to The Daily Mail, in August 2012, Zachary collapsed at the homeless shelter where his family was staying. The boy was rushed to a Portland hospital, where doctors realized his bowels had torn from blunt force trauma. He was removed from the ventilator on August 16, after just two days.
Zachary had turned four just a day before he collapsed.
Judge Don Letourneau ruled that all web searches performed by Dutro would be admissible evidence. It was shown that on the day Zachary was removed from life support, Dutro searched for anger management and parenting classes, as well as free stuff and sex with strangers.
It is believed that Dutro is responsible for her son’s death. The prosecution uncovered Facebook messages to Canady from Dutro, which displayed her disgust with the notion that the 4-year-old could be gay, according to The Oregonian.
In the messages, Dutro told her boyfriend, Brian Canady, that Zachary was “facing the wall” because he made her angry.
She wrote that her son was going to be gay and used a slur. “He walks and talks like it. Ugh.”
Canady would have to “work on” Zachary, she wrote.
Canady pled to first-degree manslaughter and second-degree assault for the boy’s death. He agreed to testify for the prosecution against Dutro.
Detectives interviewed Dutro’s 7-year-old daughter in a session that was recorded and played for the court. She told authorities that her mother and Canady often beat her and her siblings. She also stated that Dutro and Canady beat Zachary until he ‘got dead’.
The girl told detectives that Zachery stopped breathing, but Dutro and Canady ‘didn’t tell anybody’.
Dr. Danny Leonhardt, who examined Zachary, testified that by the time his Dutro sought medical attention for the child, he 'essentially was dead.'
Dr. Leonhardt said that Zachary’s injuries resembled those of car crash victims.
It was determined by physicians that all of Dutro’s children had suffered at the hands of their mother and boyfriend, including a 3-year-old boy who had five broken ribs that were in healing at different rates, suggesting they had been broken at different times.
The only child who escaped the abuse was Dutro and Canady’s infant child.
Dutro has been charged with murder, murder by abuse and second-degree assault.