By BRIAN SKOLOFF
Associated Press Writer
March 16, 2001
BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP) - Police officers didn't try
to revive a dying boy who had been sexually assaulted
because they weren't carrying their disease-deterrent
masks, the officers testified Thursday.
Jesse Dirkhising, 13, died Sept. 26, 1999, in the
apartment of Joshua Macabe Brown, 23, and Davis Don
Carpenter, 39. Prosecutors said he suffocated after
being drugged, bound, gagged and repeatedly raped.
Police officers said at Brown's trial Thursday that
the boy was lifeless, his face was blue and he had blood
in his mouth and excrement smeared on his body when they
entered the gay couple's apartment in Rogers.
`There was horrible stench in the room when I walked
in. It was overwhelming,'' said Jason Curry, a former
police officer in Rogers now with the U.S. Border Patrol
in Arizona.
Under cross-examination by Brown's lawyer, both Curry
and former Cpl. Ian Smith said they had left the masks
necessary to protect themselves from disease behind in
the car when they entered the apartment. Department
policy mandates their use during resuscitation attempts,
they said.
Smith detected a weak pulse and Curry left to get the
masks from the car, but paramedics arrived moments
later, and they attempted to resuscitate the boy, Curry
said.
The boy's heart was beating irregularly when
paramedics checked him, said fire department Lt. David
Whitlow. But Jesse was pronounced dead a short time
later at a hospital. The defense had suggested in its
opening statement that the delay in resuscitation
contributed to the boy's death.
`Could one breath have made a difference?'' defense
lawyer Louis Lim asked paramedic Jackie Wassmann on
Thursday.
`Yes, sir,'' Wassmann replied.
A medical examiner's report said Jesse died from
positional asphyxia, being unable to breathe because of
the way he was bound on a bed.
Jurors on Thursday also heard the 911 call that
summoned the officers. On the tape, both men sounded
frantic _ Carpenter cursing, and Brown yelling ``Jesse,
come back!'' in the distance.
In opening statements Wednesday, Brown's lawyer,
Louis Lim, told jurors the defense would concede
statutory rape, but he argued Brown never meant for the
boy to die. Brown could face the death penalty if
convicted.
Brown told police in a taped interview he and the boy
had agreed to tie each other up and that the boy agreed
to at least one act of sodomy.
`The night before, he had hog-tied (me), so I thought
I'd get him back,'' Brown said on the tape, which was
played in court Thursday. ``I left him for five minutes.
I didn't think I had tied anything that tight. I just
left to go eat a sandwich.''
Prosecutors said a violent act that ends in death
justifies the capital murder charge.
Carpenter, whose trial is set for May, was a friend
of Jesse's parents. The boy's mother, Tina Yates,
testified Thursday that Jesse earn $45 a weekend doing
chores at the hair salon where Carpenter worked and that
she gave her son permission to spend a Saturday night at
the men's home.
