KAELYN BRAY - 3 yo - Great Falls MT

A Great Falls man was arrested early Saturday morning
after allegedly trying to kill a 3-year-old girl who was on life support as of
late Saturday.Jerimie Hicks, 22, is being held without bond at the
Cascade County regional jail on the charge of attempted deliberate
homicide.
While police released few details about Kaelyn Bray's
condition, doctors told the family that the 3-year-old has severe brain damage
and a slim chance of survival.
"The evidence obtained at this point indicates the
suspect inflicted severe physical harm on this child," County Attorney John
Parker said. "There's still a substantial investigation under way."
An ambulance responded to 200 Glenwood Court at 1:24
p.m. Friday to a call that a dog knocked down the toddler. Police were soon
called to investigate after medical personal deemed the story suspicious.
The child's great-grandmother, Leona Ray, said Hicks
initially said the family's puppy bumped the toddler, who then fell down a
flight of stairs onto a landing before turning 90 degrees to fall down a second
flight of stairs.
Ray said she suspects Hicks' original account wasn't
the truth.
"It just couldn't happen," she said.
Ray said she also noticed an indentation in the wall
and asked Hicks, her granddaughter Jessica Bray's boyfriend, what happened. Ray
said Hicks told her that when he saw what happened to the child, he threw the
dog against the wall.
Bray's cousin, Joe Corey, told the Tribune that Hicks
changed the child in to her pajamas and put her to bed after she was injured. A
half hour later, he checked on her and noticed she wasn't breathing, which is
when he called 9-1-1.
Bray was working as a nurse at the Great Falls Clinic
at the time.
The toddler underwent surgery at Benefis Health System.
Corey said that during surgery, doctors discovered a blood clot in the toddler's
head and found the swelling to be more severe than anticipated, Corey said.
She is in critical condition in intensive care and has
been non-responsive. Corey said Kaelyn will occasionally take a breath on her
own.
Doctors will monitor Kaelyn Bray for 48 hours after the
surgery before deciding whether to take her off life support.
"It's so sad," Ray said. "At this point the only thing,
along with the doctors, that can save her is prayers."
Hicks, a member of the Air Force stationed at Malmstrom
Air Force Base, will be formally charged in District Court on Monday.
Investigators and prosecutors said the charges could be amended as the
investigation progresses.

Jerimie Hicks was convicted in the death of 3-year-old Kaelyn Bray on Monday evening, putting to rest an emotional weeklong trial and a harrowing nine months for Kaelyn's mother and family.
Hicks, 22, was found guilty of one count of deliberate homicide and one count of solicitation to tamper with evidence. Cascade County Attorney John Parker said he will seek a life sentence without parole.Immediately after the verdict was read, District Judge Dirk Sandefur upheld Parker's motion to keep Hicks held in custody with no bail until his sentencing, which Sandefur set for six weeks from now.Hicks was charged with severely beating Kaelyn, the daughter of his then-girlfriend, Jessica Bray, on Feb. 26. Kaelyn suffered severe brain injuries and was declared brain dead three days later.Bray sat in the front row with her mother and 10-year-old son, surrounded by family and friends, many of whom wore pink during the entire trial. When the verdict was read, Bray sobbed and hugged family members."I'm just so happy," she said.On Kaelyn's final night, after she was declared brain dead and her body was about to be used for organ donation, Bray held her 3-year-old in her arms and told her that she would work every day to prevent a death like Kaelyn's from happening again.Bray said that she and her family intend to start the Dandelion Foundation, named after Kaelyn's favorite flower, which will fund education and awareness about child abuse and domestic violence.Bray said she wants people to know that abusers don't fit into a stereotype."It could be anybody that could be doing this," she said.Hicks' family members, who also were present for the verdict, did not offer any comment, nor did his attorneys, Ed Sheehy and Steven Scott.The 12-member jury, made up of five men and seven women, began deliberation shortly after 3 p.m. and returned a verdict shortly before 6 p.m. Parker said the amount of time the jury spent deliberating, less than three hours, was a "pleasant surprise."In rendering its verdict, the jury decided that Hicks was responsible for Kaelyn's fatal injuries despite the defense's claims that an accidental death couldn't be ruled out.
Sheehy had argued earlier that Hicks was guilty of harming Kaelyn, but not to the extent that it caused her death. The jury also had the option of finding Hicks guilty of assault on a minor, a lesser offense included in the homicide charge, if they found him not guilty on the more serious murder charge.
Hicks, who was alone in the house with Kaelyn when she sustained severe injuries, claimed that he shoved her into the wall out of frustration, but that she was fine after suffering minor injuries. Hicks told police that later the girl fell down the stairs after tripping on their puppy.Emergency responders and doctors who later worked on Kaelyn that day testified that they did not believe the girl's injuries were consistent with a fall down the stairs."The truth only happened one way, but the lie can change a million times," Parker said after the verdict was read. "The jury was able to turn aside the curtain of lies."In his closing statement, Parker argued that Hicks' actions caused the eventual death of Kaelyn, and that Hicks' "ever-changing claim of an accidental fall" was not the reason that she was dead.Hicks slammed the toddler against the wall and beat her until she was unresponsive, Parker said."The record provides rock-solid evidence proving that's exactly what happened," he said.Referring often to Hicks' videotaped interview with police hours after the incident, Parker depicted a guilty man who continually changed his story to "evade justice." Parker cited testimony from Great Falls Police officers who said Hicks initially told them that Kaelyn tripped on their puppy and fell down the stairs.Once they got permission from Jessica Bray to search the house, Hicks then amended his story to include that he had thrown their puppy against the wall upon finding the girl at the bottom of the stairs, which caused a dent in the wall.Later, when police questioned the stairs claim, Hicks told them that he got frustrated with Kaelyn and shoved her against the wall and said that action caused the dent. She later went upstairs and then fell after tripping on the puppy.
"It's a sham," Parker said. "It's a bogus alibi meant to shield and conceal the truth and evade justice."
Parker also called into question the likelihood of Kaelyn being able to fall down the house's stairs, which are separated by two flights that turn 180 degrees with a wide landing in the middle. Hicks claimed that the girl fell down both flights and landed at the bottom."Common sense and the medical evidence come together at a point," Parker said "You know this was no accident."In his closing argument, Sheehy argued that there was no proof given by the state that Kaelyn's injuries weren't caused by an accident."It would be easy to point to this man as the villain," Sheehy said after walking to the defense table and pointing to Hicks.But the case was not about child abuse, Sheehy said. It was about whether Hicks' actions actually were responsible for Kaelyn's death. The state had not proven that they were, he said."We value human life," Sheehy said. "It is tragic that her life ended on the first of March, and my heart goes out to her family. But we also value justice ... Our justice system is not designed to bring people to justice, it is designed to deal with the truth."The truth, Sheehy argued was that Hicks may not have told the complete story from the beginning, but he never wavered in saying that Kaelyn fell down the stairs."He was not making an alibi, he was scared," Sheehy said.Sheehy did not dispute that Hicks caused injuries to Kaelyn Bray when he shoved her against the wall, and he urged the jury to find him guilty of the lesser offense of assault on a minor. But the state wasn't able to prove that Hicks was solely responsible for her death, he argued."You can't speculate or conjecture that he did," Sheehy said. "(The prosecution) has to prove that what he did caused her to die."Sheehy also cited the testimony of Kaelyn's neurosurgeon, John Van Gilder, who said that although he didn't believe Kaelyn's injuries were caused by a fall down the stairs, he could not rule out an accident.
The trial began Monday with the prosecution's final witness, Detective Bruce McDermott of the Great Falls Police Department. McDermott was the lead detective in the Hicks case.
The prosecution used McDermott's testimony to address the charge of solicitation to tamper with evidence. McDermott testified that Hicks made a phone call to his mother while McDermott was in an interrogation room with him on the night and early morning after the incident. McDermott said that Hicks seemed to be talking in code while he was around. The taped interview shows Hicks, who was about to be taken to jail, saying to his mother on the phone: "Jenny (a family member) needs to go to the house. Just think of why I want her to go to the house."The prosecution argued that Hicks, who was stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base at the time, was telling his mother to get an Air Force uniform that had blood stains on it. Forensic testing later concluded that those stains matched Kaelyn's DNA."It's something so sensitive to him that he could not spell it out on the phone," McDermott said on the stand Monday.McDermott testified that the uniform was already in police possession at the time of the February phone call, but Hicks was not yet aware of that. The detective later testified that Hicks gave police three different explanations for the red stains on his uniform before testing revealed that it was Kaelyn's blood. McDermott said that Hicks told them it was paint, his own blood and animal blood on different occasions.The prosecution also played a recording of a May 26 phone call Hicks made to his mother from jail. At some point in the conversation, Hicks informed his mother that a uniform apparently in her possession was not the right one."Mom ... they (police) said they took my uniform ... you said you had it ...Well, you need to look and see because they said they took it, but you said you had it," Hicks said in the recording.Hicks' defense called two witnesses to the stand before closing its case. The defense used their time to argue that the state could not prove that Hicks' phone calls specifically solicited any evidence tampering.Steven Scott, one of Hicks' attorneys, argued that Hicks probably just wanted his uniform out of the house. He also brought up that Hicks never mentioned any uniform specifically anywhere in the February phone call with his mother.The defense also called Hicks' mother, Shalane Hicks, to the stand. In her brief testimony, she testified that Hicks dealt with classified information as part of his duties with the Air Force. When Hicks told her to retrieve his things from the house on Feb. 26, she did not think he was talking about his uniform, but about important classified documents, she said.Hicks will face sentencing in six weeks. His possible penalty ranges from 10 years in prison to life without parole on the homicide charge and up to 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine for the solicitation charge.

Kaelyn Serene Bray
Rest In Peace Lil Angel