A father testified Tuesday in the murder trial of his ex-wife, who is charged with killing his son back in 2015 by allegedly beating him to death.
Analiz Osceola, 32, is charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child, lying to law enforcement and child neglect with great bodily harm. She's accused of killing her stepson, 3-year-old Ahziya Osceola.
Nelson Osceola said everything seemed fine the night before his son was found dead. But the next day, his ex-wife contacted him at work to say something was wrong.
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"She called me and said that my son was missing," he said.
Police would later find the 3-year-old’s body in a box inside the family’s home.
Prosecutors asked the father to describe Analiz’s behavior when she later told him the boy was dead.
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"Crying; not looking at me. No eye contact," Nelson said.
Prosecutors asked if the stepmother said why she didn't tell him sooner about the child.
"No, she just said she panicked," he said.
The father said Analiz was a stay-at-home mother and his son’s primary caretaker, in charge of feeding and bathing him.
Nelson said he didn’t know at the time that his son was being abused. One time, when he asked Analiz about a leg injury that his son had, she told him that his son had hurt himself.
"She said he jumped off the grill. He stood up and he fell back down," he said. "She said that his leg was messed up. She asked if he was in pain, she said he said no."
Officials said the boy’s body was found stuffed in two garbage bags in a box inside the family’s home, and that he died of blunt force trauma.
The stepmother faces up to 31 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
