Jury weighs evidence in Keene toddler death case

Judge Anne Edwards sent the panel to deliberate at 2:15 p.m., and jurors remained behind closed doors until 3:45 p.m. without announcing a decision.

Jurors in the trial of Annthoni Bliss began deliberating Thursday and had not reached a verdict by the time court adjourned, setting up a return to Cheshire County Superior Court on Friday.

Bliss, 24, of Lyndeborough, is facing a second-degree murder charge in the January 2024 death of 23-month-old Luca Hudson. He has entered a not guilty plea in the case, which began on Oct. 26 and moved into closing arguments Thursday.

Judge Anne Edwards sent the panel to deliberate at 2:15 p.m., and jurors remained behind closed doors until 3:45 p.m. without announcing a decision.

The prosecution told jurors that the evidence showed Bliss caused Luca’s fatal injuries. Senior Assistant Attorney General Peter Hinckley said the medical testimony presented by the state established severe head trauma, and he argued Bliss had both the chance and the ability to inflict it. He also pointed to internet searches Bliss made and later deleted about Luca’s injuries, saying they suggested knowledge that only the person responsible would likely have.

Hinckley also challenged Bliss’ account of being on FaceTime with his sister while he was caring for Luca and the boy’s 4-year-old brother while Lydia Marrotte was away. Bliss had previously acknowledged that he was not actually on the call, though he described the statement as a memory mistake. Hinckley said the defense expert, Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, was a paid witness whose testimony was aimed at advocacy rather than objectivity.

Defense attorney Monique Schmidt urged jurors to reject the state’s case, saying investigators locked onto Bliss too early and built a theory before gathering enough proof. She said the evidence fell short of showing beyond a reasonable doubt that Bliss caused Luca’s death through abuse.

Schmidt also argued that the medical evidence was not as one-sided as prosecutors claimed. She said Luca may have suffered from a rare bleeding condition rather than abuse, and that an impact to the head, whether major or minor, could have led to the fatal outcome. She told jurors that not every child death is caused by abuse and said the state tried to undermine Laposata while presenting its own experts as more credible.

The New Hampshire Medical Examiner’s Office ruled that Luca died of homicide by blunt force trauma. Early in the trial, doctors from Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center testified that the brain injury that led to his death was trauma-related. Luca died at the Lebanon hospital on Jan. 17, 2024.

The case also included testimony from police officers, Marrotte and Bliss during the nine-day trial. Investigators had alleged that Bliss inflicted abusive violence on Luca while he and his 4-year-old brother were in Bliss’ care and that medical help was not sought quickly enough, though the failure to get timely treatment was later removed from the indictment.

According to New Hampshire law, a person can be convicted of second-degree murder if they knowingly cause another person’s death and do so recklessly under circumstances showing extreme indifference to human life.