Jason Wesche looked through a stack of photos from his kitchen taken on March 8, 2018, the day his 3-year-old daughter collapsed at Partin’s residence and never regained consciousness. Hannah died 10 days later after suffering head trauma.
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Defense attorney Melynda Cook Howard asked him whether he had milk or cereal in the refrigerator or shelves. Wesche said, “no.”
But the single father told detectives he picked up Hannah on the evening of March 7, 2018 and went to Walmart to buy milk. He also told detectives that Hannah was acting normally the next morning, eating cereal before leaving his house that neighbors Partin’s residence.
“So you lied when you said you and Hannah went to Walmart to get milk,” Cook Howard said to Wesche.
“Yes,” he said, adding he was under a lot of stress at the time and thought he had gone to get milk.
Just before trial, Wesche said he remembered he took a friend home to Fairfield that night and came home. Then he and Hannah fell asleep on the couch.
Cook Howard said that Wesche was behind on rent and babysitting money owed to Partin in March 2018 and had gotten into trouble at work, a construction company owned by Partin’s boyfriend’s family.
“You knew you were on a short leash,” Cook Howard said to him.
Then she suggested Hannah was injured while Wesche was running late for work that morning and fell when he pulled the car fast while climbing from the front to the back seat.
Wesche said that didn’t happen. He often did not strap the child into the car seat to travel the short distance from his house to Partin’s on a private drive because Hannah “liked to drive.” While sitting in his lap.
“But that day she climbed over the seat and laid down in the back seat,” Wesche said. Adding Hannah did not fall.
Wesche told Cook Howard that he told detectives and Partin some inconsistent statements in 2018 because of the stress he was under.
“I was confused,” Wesche said. “I was concerned about my daughter and telling my other children she was going to die.”
MORNING REPORT, April 9
Here is what we know so far in the case:
Father testifies today
Jason Wesche, who was a single father and Partin’s neighbor in March 2018, has not been in the courtroom during the trial in anticipation of his testimony and the call for separation of witnesses.
He is expected to testify today.
On Monday, the defense noted inconsistencies in Wesche’s statements to law enforcement about the night of March 7, 2018, the day before Hannah suffered injuries allegedly caused by Partin.
Cook Howard, during questioning of detective Dan Turner, said Wesche “lied” about going to Walmart that night to get milk. No milk was discovered in the house and there was no video of him at the store.
Turner said the investigation determined Wesche did not go to the store.
Cook Howard said the statement Wesche gave that Hannah was eating cereal with milk and acting normally the morning of March 8 could not be true.
Noted pathologist to testify for defense
On Saturday, prosecutors and defense attorneys traveled to Michigan to depose noted forensic pathologist Werner Spitz who will testify for the defense.
Now 92, Spitz, was a defense witness in the 2011 Casey Anthony trial, a Florida mother acquitted of murder in the death of her 2-year-old. Spitz also was a defense witness in the Warren County trials of Ryan Widmer, who was convicted for the bathtub murder of his wife, Sarah.
Defense attorneys have hinted in trial questioning that Spitz has a different opinion of the timeline of Hannah’s injuries.
Dr. Dorothy Dean, a forensic pathologist with the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office, said Hannah suffered deep bruising to the back of the head, some of which was revealed only after the skin was peeled away from the skull. She also had a hemorrhage to the optic nerve and “tremendous brain damage.”
Dean said Hannah’s death was a homicide and that the girl would not have been acting normally within “a couple moments” of receiving the injury.
The charges
Partin, 36, is charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter and child abuse in the death of Hannah for the injuries she suffered on March 8, 2018, while Partin was babysitting the 3-year-old.
Prosecutors say Partin abused the 32-pound girl between March 6 and 8, 2018, while babysitting her. Partin admitted “to uppercutting Hannah multiple times and poking her in the chest,” prosecutors told the jury during opening statements.
On March 8, after the toddler’s father dropped the child off at the neighboring house, Partin picked up the girl and shook her to stop her from crying, according to prosecutors.
The defense team says Partin did not abuse or injure the child, pointing to injuries Hannah suffered while at play on March 6 and 7 and noting that Partin told the child’s father about the incidents. The child was only with Partin for 30 seconds to a minute before 911 was called, the defense notes.
What the jury heard from Partin
Partin denied striking Hannah during her first interview with Butler County Sheriff’s detectives on March 8, 2018, after the child was taken to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital suffering from head trauma. She died several days later.
Partin told the detectives about falls the girl had in the preceding days, from a toy train and a “face plant” on the gravel driveway. The jury has viewed video of Partin’s interviews with detectives.
She told them on that March 8, 2018, Hannah was brought to her house at about 7 a.m. by her father and collapsed within about 30 seconds after asking for a doughnut.
But in the second interview, Partin said she had been frustrated after having a miscarriage at the end of February.
Partin told detectives Ryan Hensley and Turner that “I slapped her up the side of the head.” Hannah had taken ketchup and squirted it in the toilet, she told them.
When detectives pressed her about what happened on March 8, telling her Hannah had suffered abusive head trauma and it happened immediately, Partin first said the girl fell on the steps tripping over the blanket and striking her head on the metal part. After more prodding, Partin said she fell on the steps while holding Hannah.
Eventually, Partin told detectives that they did fall, but she also shook Hannah.
“She didn’t want him (father) to go to work, and I shook her,” Partin said.
During cross examination of Turner on Monday defense attorney Melynda Cook Howard questioned the techniques used by law enforcement to interrogate Partin.
The defense also pointed out Partin only talked about a fall or accident involving Hannah on March 8 after the detectives made the suggestion to her several times.
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