Emotional Zimmerman denies seeing previous signs of abuse of her twins

Tabitha Zimmerman in a 2018 mug shot – Courtesy Photo RSW Jail

Shortly after 6 p.m., Tuesday, April 9, Tabitha Zimmerman took the stand in her own defense against charges she was willfully negligent of signs of a pattern of abuse of her twins at the hands of her then-fiancé Chad Ritchie leading to the death of her son Malachi.

Asked by her attorney John Bell, “Did you ever see Mr. Ritchie lose his temper with the kids?” Zimmerman replied, “No.”

“Did you ever see him hit the kids?”

“No,” the 29-year-old Zimmerman again replied.

“Did you notice more bruises on the boys when they were with Chad Ritchie than with the babysitter?”

“No.”

“Did it ever occur to you that Chad Ritchie would beat your children?”

“No, that’s not what I thought.”

“He was never abusive to you?”

“No.”

“Did you ever see him abusive with his daughter?”

“No,” Zimmerman asserted.

The idea that Ritchie’s abuse of November 8, 2017, was an aberration, rather than a pattern matched Ritchie’s defense team’s arguments at both trial and his sentencing hearing last month.

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Tabitha Zimmerman’s testimony will resume when the trial continues at 9 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Earlier in the day as a sheriff’s deputy’s body camera videotape was played by the prosecution showing Zimmerman and her parents and son Micah at Warren Memorial Hospital awaiting news on Malachi’s condition; being informed he was dead; and reacting emotionally to that news and not being allowed to see his body, Zimmerman dropped her head onto the defense table and sobbed throughout.

Twenty-two-month-old Malachi Zimmerman died on November 8, 2017, and his brother Micah sustained injuries from physical abuse Ritchie, 29, admitted to inflicting on the boys while in his care as their mother worked a night shift at Rubbermaid where the couple had met.

The prosecution rested at 5 p.m. Tuesday after presenting 17 witnesses in the trial that began at 2:30 p.m. Monday after several hours of jury selection. Following Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Layton’s closing of the prosecution case, defense attorney John Bell moved to have the case dismissed due to a lack of evidence in support of the commonwealth’s admittedly circumstantial case against his client.

“The commonwealth has proved that Mr. Ritchie did harm to the children – the only question is, was this an event Tabitha Zimmerman could reasonably have foreseen and prevented,” Bell told the court.

Chad Ritchie mug shot from 2018, closer to the time of his December 2018 trial. Courtesy Photo RSW Jail

Defense counsel pointed to the commonwealth’s own expert witnesses to argue a failure to present evidence in support of the prosecution contention that the abuse of November 8, 2017, was the culmination of pattern of abuse by Ritchie.

Ritchie entered an Alford guilty plea on the second day of his December trial, admitting the prosecution had evidence to convict without admitting guilt. Ritchie’s attorneys argued that while Ritchie had struck the twins to the head and body out of anger and frustration while babysitting them, the cause of Malachi’s death was aggressively and wrongly administered CPR (Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation) performed by a panicking Ritchie as he tried to revive the boy who was not breathing.

The cause of Malachi’s death was cardiac arrest caused by internal bleeding from a ruptured intestine that bled into the child’s stomach cavity.

Pointing to the commonwealth’s own expert witnesses, State Forensic Pathologist Meghan Kessler who did Malachi Zimmerman’s autopsy; Winchester Medical Center Forensic Nurse Betty Fisher who examined surviving brother Micah the evening of the incident; and Pediatrician Ashley Blanzit who treated the boys on a regular basis, Bell told Judge Clifford L. Athey Jr. the prosecution had failed to provide any testimony corroborating previous injuries of the nature of those the boys received the day of Malachi’s death.

Bell noted that all of the commonwealth’s expert witnesses had testified under cross examination that none of the older bruises, scabs or marks on the boys were of a nature to raise abuse alarm bells without the presence of the newer marks admittedly inflicted by Ritchie and determined to be the cause of Malachi’s death and Micah’s injuries of November 8, 2017.

Arguing against dismissal, Layton countered that in a circumstantial case like this one it should be up to the jury to decide if sufficient evidentiary circumstances have been provided to achieve conviction. He cited case histories in which criminal liability from inaction had been upheld on a variety of fronts. He also noted that the prosecution experts had indicated that the signs of past blunt force trauma injuries of an abusive nature can vary from person to person.

“It should be up to the jury to decide,” Layton told the court.

After 10 minutes of deliberation in chambers and five minutes of prefacing his decision to the attorneys, Athey agreed that the trial should proceed to the defense case with the jury as ultimate arbitrators of guilt or innocence. In denying the defense motion to dismiss, Judge Athey noted that at this point in a trial a motion to dismiss must be viewed in the light most favorable to the commonwealth.