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Witnesses testify Marissa Kennedy’s stepfather told them she was dead months before murder

Two former co-workers of Julio Carrillo testified Monday that he told them his stepdaughter was dead months before she was murdered.

BELFAST, Maine — Jurors in the murder trial of Sharon Carrillo were dismissed shortly after 2 p.m. Monday in order for attorneys to argue before Justice Robert E. Murry whether dozens of text messages and Department of Health and Human Services records would be shown to jurors.

Carrillo is charged with depraved indifference murder in the February 2018 death of her daughter, 10-year-old Marissa Kennedy, in Stockton Springs.

Sharon Carrillo's husband, Julio Carrillo, already pleaded guilty to the murder and is serving a 55-year prison sentence.

RELATED: Julio Carrillo sentenced to 55 years in prison for role in Marissa Kennedy's murder

Murray ruled on Monday that the jury could be told that Julio Carrillo pleaded guilty to murdering Kennedy and was sentenced to 55 years in prison, although MacLean said at noon that he had not yet informed the jury of those facts.

Monday morning, former co-workers of Julio Carrillo's, one at Ocean State Job Lot in Belfast and the other at Tozier's Family Market in Searsport, testified that Carrillo told them his stepdaughter had died months before Kennedy was murdered, defense attorney Chris MacLean said.

Last week, jurors saw photographs of Kennedy’s bruised and beaten body and viewed recorded police interviews in which Sharon Carrillo confessed to participating in the brutal assaults on her daughter.

But defense attorneys argue that Julio Carrillo alone killed Kennedy, that he also abused his wife, and that detectives who interviewed Sharon Carrillo following Kennedy’s death coerced confessions from a woman with limited intelligence.

RELATED: Julio Carrillo invokes 5th Amendment, will not testify in murder trial of Sharon Carrillo

MacLean told reporters on Monday that the 40 to 50 text messages in question were found on cell phones in the Carrillo home. Some "were designed to look like they were sent by" Carrillo's father and stepmother, he said, and others "threatened Sharon's life."

"They look pretty much like they're from Julio Carrillo," MacLean said. 

Sharon Carrillo told police that her stepmother sent text messages telling the couple how to "punish" Kennedy, but late last week, Roseann Kennedy testified that she never sent the messages.

On Monday, MacLean said the messages are important, in part, because jurors saw Carrillo confess during a recorded interview with State Police detectives that the messages didn't actually exist, "when in fact, they did," MacLean said.

Pediatrician Dr. Amy Barrett, who saw Kennedy five times between October 2016 and July 2017, testified Monday, “I called DHHS on a number of occasions,” with concerns about neglect and a lack of in-home services for reported behavioral issues.

Reading from various medical reports, Barrett said Julio Carrillo repeatedly told emergency room staff that Kennedy injured herself -- both while awake and asleep -- as well as her siblings and her mother, and said she had been diagnosed with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder, although Barrett said neither was true.

Carrillo also advocated for her to receive psychiatric care.

According to a December 2016 Acadia Hospital report, when Kennedy and her mother spoke with staff about therapy for Kennedy that would include individual sessions Kennedy and the therapist, the two went into the hallway to speak to Julio Carrillo. Kennedy then said she did not want to continue with therapy, according to the clinician’s report.

Reading from the report, Barrett said Julio Carrillo then became angry and told staff of his stepdaughter, “She knows she’s in trouble for speaking behind our backs … I’m not bringing her back here."

Also in December 2016, both Sharon Carrillo and Marissa Kennedy were seen on the same day at an emergency room for "behavioral and psychiatric" issues. Barrett said DHHS was contacted when Julio Carrillo objected to staff having private conversations with his wife, and that he threatened to "pull her from outpatient services."

MacLean said he plans to call the DHHS caseworker, assigned to Kennedy on Tuesday, as well as the state's forensic psychologist who evaluated Sharon Carrillo.

According to MacLean, Miller evaluated Carrillo at the request of prosecutors, but they failed to call her as a witness. 

He said he would decide Tuesday if Sharon Carrillo will testify.

MacLean said he hoped the defense would rest by the end of the day on Tuesday.

RELATED: Julio Carrillo invokes 5th Amendment, will not testify in murder trial of Sharon Carrillo

RELATED: 'I feel like I'm dying,' murder victim Marissa Kennedy told Sharon Carrillo before her death

RELATED: Jurors in Sharon Carrillo murder trial see cell phone photos, video of Marissa Kennedy before death

RELATED: 'I shoulda stopped.' Jurors hear Sharon Carrillo describe how she beat her daughter to death

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