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***UPDATE***
December 03, 2001
Ziebart jurors view autopsy pictures
as reported in
The Times - Republic
By Sherry Waters
Reporter
The state rested its case-in-the chief in the Kevin Ziebart murder trial Friday after
jurors viewed photographs of two-year-old Kloie Van Hoveln as she appeared while she
she was being treated at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana on Aug. 29, 2000.
Ziebart, 31, is accused of beating and killing the two-year-old girl he was babysitting
while her mother was at work. Ziebart and Kloie's mother, Paulette Moenck, were
involved in a relationship and Ziebart was living with Moenck at her apartment in
Oppyville.
Kloie died about 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 29, 2000, and Ziebart was picked up for
questioning about 1:00 a.m. Aug. 30 and was charged with her murder later that day.
Ziebart has consistently contended that Kloie suffered head injuries in a fall from a
sliding board in Legion Park on the morning of her death.
Jurors on Friday also viewed autopsy photographs that Judge Gordon Lustfeldt
approved for viewing.
The viewing brought quiet tears to some jurors while others were swallowing with
some difficulty. But all did the job that was expected of them--they viewed the
photographs carefully although for some it was obviously painful.
Watseka Police Detective Elizabeth Perzee also testified Friday. Special Prosecutor
Ed Parkinson questioned Perzee about how she received certain evidence in the case.
Perzee said she had received a notebook, Kloie's pink nightgown, blue shorts, and a
washrag from Moenck's roommate, Tammie Moore. She received a white pullover shirt
from Lloyd Coffia, friend of Moore's and Moenck's. Moore and Coffia had removed the
items from the apartment where Ziebart, Moenck and Moore lived.
Perzee turned the items she'd received over to the special state police crime scene
investigator Michael Trummel.
Ziebart's attorney, Jamie Boyd, questioned Perzee about the manner in which she
received the evidence. Perzee said the two had brought the clothing and other items to
her at the police department. "They said they found it," Perzee said.
"Do you know if a member of the Watseka Police Department directed her to bring the
items in?" Boyd asked Perzee
.
"I believe Tammie Moore was told to do so," Perzee said. "I don't know if she already
had it."
Perzee said she had been dressed in street clothes when she had spoken with Ziebart
at Iroquois Memorial Hospital shortly after he had brought the injured two-year-old in for
treatment. She told him she needed to gather information from him and he was defensive
when he was talking to her.
"He told me, 'Duh, you guys should know this." "Did you take that he was tired of
telling it over and over?" Did he tell you what he'd said about her falling from the slide?"
Boyd asked.
"Yes," Perzee answered.
Perzee told Boyd that Ziebart did answer the questions she asked and gave her the
information she needed about Kloie's mother.
The jury was sent from the room while the judge and attorneys decided which pictures
they would see.
Boyd argued that photographs of Kloie's bruises and other injuries had no bearing on
her death. "We have had testimony in this case that the head injury is what killed Kloie.
The other injuries have no bearing on why she died and only serve to be prejudicial," he
told Lustfeldt.
"We're not arguing the injuries to the child did not occur. The doctors testimony proved
the acts occurred, not the photos. To show the pictures to people who are not medical
professionals is totally inappropriate."
Parkinson argued that the finders of the fact are entitled to see the evidence. "That
the photos are of a gruesome nature is not the state's fault. The doctors concluded the
child was beaten to death and the jury is entitled to see evidence of that," Parkinson said.
Parkinson is referring to testimony from Dr. Leonard Kaczorwoski, emergency room
physician at Iroquois Memorial Hospital, Dr. Donald Davison, pediatric director at Carle
foundation Hospital, and Dr. Bryan Mitchell, a forensic pathologist who serves as a
coroner's physician in Illinois and is the pathologist who preformed the autopsy on Kloie.
Dr. Kaczorwoski treated Kloie while she was in Watseka and immediately called for a
helicopter to transfer her to Carle Foundation Hospital in Champaign.
Kaczorwoski, who is the emergency room physician, said he arrived at the Iroquois
Memorial Hospital emergency room at 9:10 a.m. on Aug. 29, 2000. He said he evaluated
her and found her to be unconscious. Her breathing was shallow so her airways were
stabilized with a tube in her trachea.
"Her pulse rate was good for her age group as was her blood pressure," the doctor
said, "but I conducted neurological tests and found she was comatose. Her pupils were
not reacting."
Kaczorwoski said Kloie had various bruises, patches of hair missing from her scalp and
bruises to her abdomen and chest, which were moderate to severe. There was no
spontaneous movement during his examination.
"She was breathing on her own, but she was breathing very slow and very shallow," he
said.
The doctor said she was transferred within an hour.
Dr. Donald Davison, director of the pediatric intensive care unit at Carle Hospital, also
testified. Davison was with Kloie from the time of her arrival until she died.
He said when he first entered the room and saw her 25-30 feet away, he knew what
had happened to her. "I said, 'My God, she's been beaten", Davison testified.
"There were a number of people working with her. She had obvious marks of having
been battered. Her hair had been ripped from her scalp, there were multiple bruises on
her face, her pupils were fixed and dilated, she was flaccid, not breathing on her own. The
bruises were going up and down her face. There were linear bruises on her abdomen in a
pattern as if she had been pinched. Bruises on her side looked like handprints."
Davison said they did a Cat Scan on Kloie to determine what her internal injuries were.
He learned her brain was swelling, she had a lacerated liver and what he had thought was
rectal bleeding was actually a ruptured adrenal gland.
"There was blunt force trauma to her head," he said and explained that when that
happens to children there is a disruption of nerve connections. "When the nerves are
sheared off, the brain swells," he said.
"Can swelling cause death?" Parkinson asked.
"It can," he said, noting that he was absolutely positive that was what killed Kloie. He
said a neurosurgeon monitored the state of pressure in her skull and Kloie's skull
pressure was excessively high. " There was inadequate blood flow to the brain," he said,
"and that continued to several hours."
Davison said he did not leave Kloie's bedside from 5 p.m. until he declared her dead at
10:30 p.m. "She was probably dead when I saw her at 5 p.m. Nothing we did made any
difference whatsoever," he said.
Davidson also testified that he took Kloie into protective custody. "I do that when I
suspect there's danger to that child," he said.
Mitchell testified that during the autopsy he found that Kloie had died from cerebral/
cervical injuries. He said if she had not incurred those injuries, she would not have died.
She had 28 separate areas of external injuries and 12 separate areas of internal
injuries, Mitchell said.
He also told Boyd in cross examination that trauma was not necessarily a condition or
event limited to criminal activity.
Lustfeldt allowed most of the photographs to be seen. "Ordinarily, as you know, graphic
and gruesome photos do not come in. But in this case, injuries suffered are not in
dispute. The state says her injuries were deliberate and the defense says it was an
accident," the judge noted.
Boyd argued that the court must have balance probative value with prejudicial values.
"There is no need to see photos of evidence not in dispute," he said.
Lustfeldt disagreed, however, and allowed all but repetitious photos and photos of
Kloie's eye and skull, which he believed were too difficult to interpret.
Boyd will begin his defense today and is expected to recall Randy Eimen to the stand.
He waived cross examination of the county's chief investigator and noted he planned to
call him during his case in chief.
Please keep Kloie's family and friends
in your prayers.
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