Throughout two days of trial ? and graphic, emotional testimony ? Lazara Arellano de Hogue has appeared unaffected. As witnesses cried over watching a truck drag 3-year-old Elijah Cozart to his death, Arellano de Hogue, the truck?s driver, sat and looked ahead silently.
As a state medical examiner explicitly described Elijah?s injuries ? causing family members to gasp and rush from the Towson courtroom? Arellano de Hogue didn?t move an inch.
A Spanish-speaking Mexican native, the woman on trial in Baltimore County Circuit Court for a fatal hit-and-run on Dec. 1, 2006, has been forced to listen to testimony through a headset as a translator keeps her informed of what?s being said.
At times, that testimony has been shocking.
“He had a huge open wound on his left side,” Dr. Ling Li, of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, said of Elijah?s fatal injuries.
Li said the boy died of multiple injuries including “compression asphyxiation” caused by prolonged pressure on Elijah?s chest.
The toddler?s death was not quick and took anywhere from 15 seconds to “minutes,” Li testified.
Nevertheless, Li said she categorized Elijah?s death as an “accident,” because of information given to her by police at the time of the boy?s autopsy.
During opening arguments Monday, prosecutor Allan Webster said Arellano de Hogue dragged Elijah in his stroller for well over a mile.
“She traveled almost two miles dragging Elijah trapped in her right front tire,” he said.
Arellano de Hogue, 41, has admitted to police she was in a hurry to get home when she slammed her pickup into 55-year-old Marjorie Thomas and a stroller holding her grandson at a busy Goucher Boulevard intersection.
Thomas was injured but survived.
Arellano de Hogue told the police who questioned her that “she had the green light,” Webster said.
Her defense attorneys have withheld their opening arguments until the close of the prosecutor?s case. The trial is expected to last until Thursday.
