Jury Clears Lyndeborough Man in Keene Toddler Death Case

The verdict came after jurors began deliberating Thursday afternoon and returned their decision at about 2:30 p.m Friday.

A Cheshire County Superior Court jury on Friday found Annthoni Bliss, 24, of Lyndeborough not guilty of second-degree murder in the 2024 death of 23-month-old Luca Hudson.

The verdict came after jurors began deliberating Thursday afternoon and returned their decision at about 2:30 p.m. Friday, following a nine-day trial that opened Oct. 26.

Luca was taken to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon on Sunday, Jan. 17, 2024, and died that same day. A medical examiner later ruled the death a homicide caused by blunt head trauma. Bliss had been in a relationship with Luca’s mother, Lydia Marrotte, at the time and was arrested in March 2025.

At trial, prosecutors argued that Bliss inflicted the injuries that killed the toddler and then failed to get emergency help quickly enough. Senior Assistant Attorney General Peter Hinckley told the court Thursday that Bliss stayed silent when he should have acted sooner, in the state’s view.

The defense countered that investigators built the case around a conclusion they had already decided on. Attorney Monique Schmidt told jurors that the evidence did not support the prosecution’s theory and that the state was relying on conjecture rather than proof.

Medical testimony was central to the case. Experts called by the state said Luca’s injuries, including bleeding beneath the scalp and swelling in the brain, were consistent with serious abusive trauma and could not have come from a minor bump during ordinary play or caregiving. They said the child’s injuries could have resulted from a single forceful impact against a hard surface or violent shaking, though they could not identify the exact mechanism that stopped his heart.

The defense presented pathologist Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, who offered a different explanation. She testified that a subgaleal hematoma, a type of scalp bleed that can follow a minor impact, may have triggered the brain swelling that led to Luca’s death. Prosecutors pointed out during the trial that she was paid for her testimony.

The state also focused on Bliss’s conduct after Luca became ill, saying he did not tell police he had been alone with Marrotte’s children, that he searched online for head injury symptoms while the family was with the toddler, and that he gave investigators a different account later than he had first provided. The defense used much of the trial to argue that police approached the case with a fixed theory and searched more aggressively for evidence against Bliss than against Marrotte, including a more extensive review of Bliss’s phone.

Both Bliss and Marrotte testified about the night Luca became visibly sick in January 2024. Marrotte said she had left Luca and his then-4-year-old brother with Bliss at her Keene apartment while she went to Manchester for a tattoo. She said she initially kept that detail from police because she did not want the boys’ father to learn she was seeing someone else. She also said she did not tell the father or doctors at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center that another adult had been in the apartment.

Bliss testified that he heard vomiting from Luca’s room and later saw the child covered in vomit and acting fussy. He said he brought Luca to Marrotte, and while they cleaned him up, he noticed the toddler’s head felt squishy and pointed that out to her. He also said he searched online for information about the symptoms while they watched Luca together, then later deleted those searches, but told police about them before surrendering his phone.