Jury to deliberate fate of dad accused of stomping baby to death (Galveston, Texas)

We've reported on dad TRAVIS JAMES MULLIS before. This guy is so despicable that even a hard-boiled, true-crime blogger is driven to wretch. So read the details for yourself. Hopefully not around meal time.

http://www.khou.com/news/local/Jury-to-deliberate-fate-of-father-accused-of-stomping-baby-to-death-117796713.html

Jury to deliberate fate of father accused of stomping baby to death

by Chris Paschenko/ The Daily News
khou.com
Posted on March 11, 2011 at 8:33 AM
Related: Galveston County Daily News website

GALVESTON, Texas — Jurors are expected to deliberate today the fate of an accused child killer who confessed on videotape to stomping his 3-month-old son to death to stop him from crying.

Prosecutors and the defense rested their cases Thursday in the capital murder trial of Travis James Mullis, who faces the death penalty if convicted in the Jan. 29, 2008, slaying of his son, Alijah.

Mullis, 24, admitted on videotape to Philadelphia homicide investigators that he intentionally killed his son. Wildlife sightseers found Alijah’s body, clad only in a diaper, on a berm near East Beach in Galveston.

"I believed the only way to make him stop crying was to kill him," Mullis told detectives after surrendering Feb. 1, 2008, at Philadelphia police headquarters.

Prosecutors played the videotape while Philadelphia police Detective Robert Hesser was on the stand.

Pausing only to sip water and smoke a cigarette, Mullis detailed the final day of his son’s life and how he then fled to the East Coast.

Consumed with stress over the fear of eviction from a crowded mobile home in Alvin, Mullis said he’d reached his breaking point when he left with his son and drove to Galveston.

Panic-driven Screams

Alijah awoke in the car, possibly from Mullis’ panic-driven screams.

Mullis tried to comfort Alijah, taking him from the car seat, cradling and bouncing him on his knee.

"I laid him crossways in the back seat and proceeded to put my hands around his throat," Mullis said in the video. "(I) applied pressure with my thumbs on his breathing tube. I heard him begin to gurgle."

Alijah wiggled and became more upset. Mullis was scared and freaked out, he said in the video.

Mullis put Alijah on the concrete berm and stomped on the infant’s head three or four times, he said. During the interview, police placed a tissue box on the floor, asking Mullis to demonstrate the amount of force he used. He appeared to step lightly on the box three times.

Alijah died instantly from blunt-force trauma, the medical examiner testified. Mullis tossed the car seat down the berm, grabbed Alijah by the feet and threw him in the same direction, the video states.

Contemplating suicide, Mullis went to East Beach but decided against driving into the shallow water of the Gulf.

He passed by Alijah’s body while leaving Galveston. He made his way to Baltimore, where he believed, mistakenly, his father lived.

No Mention Of Stops

Mullis gave detailed descriptions of his many stops at churches along the way, where he begged for gasoline and food money.

There are some contradictions in the video. Mullis said he drove his girlfriend’s 2002 Hyundai Accent, which holds about 12 gallons of gasoline, from a motel parking lot off Interstate 10, apparently in East Texas, to Tallahassee, Fla.

The car, owned by Alijah’s mother, Caren Kohberger, was incapable of making the 600-mile journey on one tank of fuel.

Philadelphia police recovered a pellet gun from the car, and Scott Pena, a Galveston police crime scene investigator, testified he found gasoline receipts in the car from LaPlace, La., Gulfport, Miss., and Marianna, Fla.

Although Mullis gives precise details of his other stops, he doesn’t mention stopping in Louisiana, Mississippi or Marianna.

No Defense Witnesses Called

Although Mullis claimed to suffer from bipolar disorder and other mental health disorders, his defense team presented no witnesses on his behalf.

Judge John Ellisor, of Galveston’s 122nd District Court in Galveston, sent jurors home Thursday before lunch. Ellisor is expected to read the charge against Mullis this morning.

Prosecutors Donna Cameron, Kayla Allen and Lyn McClellan want the jury to consider only the capital murder charge and objected to the defense asking the judge to include a lesser charge of serious bodily injury to a child.

Defense attorneys Robert K. Loper and Gerald Bourque claim Mullis is not guilty of capital murder because it wasn’t his conscious objective to kill Alijah.

Both prosecutors and the defense are expected to present closing arguments.

If the jury finds Mullis guilty, prosecutors will ask the panel to sentence the defendant to death.

Mullis was accused of sexually assaulting Alijah, but prosecutors abandoned that charge at trial, saying evidence related to the charge could be presented to the jury if there is a punishment hearing.