WISCASSET, Maine — The judge overseeing the trial of the Edgecomb man accused of killing a three-year-old child on Christmas Day in 2022 granted a mistrial Wednesday in a surprising turn of events.
Tyler Witham-Jordan, 30, was on trial for a charge of depraved indifference murder in the homicide of three-year-old Makinzlee Handrahan.
The girl's mother, 32-year-old Faith Lewis, took the stand Wednesday in Lincoln County Superior Court. While testifying, prosecutors showed Lewis images taken by the medical examiner of her daughter's bruised and badly beaten body.
"I can't, I can't! Please turn it off, I need to leave," Lewis screamed. "I need my mom. I need Henry. What did he do to my baby?"
Her screams were followed by tears as she broke down and left the witness stand. The judge dismissed early for lunch.
The defense then moved for a mistrial on the grounds of Lewis' response during her testimony and the introduction or republishing information admitted that displayed the child's body.
"Everybody in this trial knows that those pictures are dynamite," Witham-Jordan's defense counsel Dan Dube' said. "You have to show it. It's how you manage it. And when you have experienced counsel, they should have known better."
Dube said Lewis' response paved a clear pathway for a "manifest necessity" mistrial, which is when there is an occurrence in court that makes it impossible for the jury to conduct a fair trial or reach a just result.
The defense also argued for mistrial with prejudice, explaining they believes the state tried to purposely evoke an emotional reaction from the witness for the jury to see, creating a prejudice or bias among the jury against the defendant.
Superior Justice Daniel Billings, who was presiding over the trial, granted the request for mistrial on the grounds of manifest necessity, but the judge denied the request for mistrial with prejudice. Mistrial with prejudice would have prevented Witham-Jordan from being able to be put on trial again for the crimes he has been charged with.
Billings said he had never seen a witness react in the extreme way Lewis reacted and said he didn't believe anything could have been done to make this a fair trial.
"I cannot be confident that a result of this trial would be fair and just," Billings said.
The judge did, however, explain that he does not believe state prosecutors showed misconduct, shooting down the defense's accusations of prosecutorial misconduct.
State prosecutor Jennifer Ackerman grappled with the judge in a back-and-forth exchange before he made his final decision to move forward with the mistrial.
Ackerman argued she believed the photo was a critical piece of evidence that was necessary to show to Lewis during her testimony. She explained Lewis would have been the only other adult who knew how her child looked in her final hours before she was killed. Ackerman also said Lewis is one of few people who could detail how the child looked the morning that she was found dead.
"There's no other way that I can accurately have her describe it than showing the picture and saying is this what it looked like," Ackerman said.
Ultimately, Ackerman and judge Billings disagreed. Billings said prosecutors could have shown Lewis other pictures of evidence that had been admitted to court.
From Dube's point of view, the photo of the girl's body was never meant to be shown to lay witnesses, or witnesses who are not professionals and who don't have extensive experience with reviewing gruesome evidence.
Dube' said the pictures had been shown once in court already and that the photos would have been shown again to other witnesses like medical examiners.
Handrahan died by non-accidental blunt force trauma, according to the Maine Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. She had bruising to her face, right ear, head, back and stomach. The Chief Medical Examiner's Office also found Witham-Jordan's DNA under the toddler's fingertips and on a broken hairbrush that had her hair in it, according to court documents.
An affidavit in the case noted that there was a Maine Department of Health and Human Services investigation into the child's wellbeing two months before the child died. Handrahan's day care contacted DHHS with concerns over a scratch and bruises she had on her body. Witham-Jordan was a suspect in that DHHS child abuse investigation.
Witham-Jordan pleaded not guilty to charges relating to Handrahan's death back in January.