Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
When I became a mother at the age of seventeen, I could suddenly relate to news stories. The Oklahoma City bombing. Susan Smith drowning her little boys. Everything suddenly touched me on an entirely different level when it hit me that I was suddenly responsible for raising a child—no, helping a child survive, when you think about it—in a truly frightening world.
The 2000 murder of 21-month-old Kassidy Bortner, though, is the one that will stay with me forever, a situation I still think about a lot.
Although I was …
… recently accused by a ZL commenter as thinking that I am “perfect” (which is incredibly laughable on a variety of levels), the fact is that I made a lot of mistakes when my daughter was young. I see no need to list them here, but one I will share is that I spent a lot of time with a lot of people who were, in retrospect, pretty unsavory. When Kassidy Bortner died in November of 2000, I was at a place where I could reflect on that … and be incredibly grateful that I was always the kind of mother who wouldn’t leave her child alone with pretty much anyone.
It’s a disturbing story with lots of twists, but here’s the gist.
Kassidy Bortner was born to 17-year-old Amanda Bortner on February 4, 1999. Amanda Bortner began dating Chad Evans of Rochester, New Hampshire in June of 2000 and moved in with him shortly thereafter. According to her eighteen-month well child doctor appointment records from August of 2000, there was no evidence of any bruising or other matters of concern regarding Kassidy. Bortner’s mother Jacqueline Conley told police that she saw “nothing wrong” with her granddaughter in September.
This all changed in October when, by many accounts, Kassidy was suddenly exhibiting bruises and bouts of lethargy. In other words, the body of this precious baby girl was screaming out, “I’m being abused,” and nobody did anything. Oh, wait, that’s not exactly right—Evans’ ex-wife, Tristan Wentworth Evans, called DCYF, but no investigation was made until it was too late.
The bumps and scratches and scabs on the bottom of Kassidy’s feet added up, and Amanda Bortner commented when dropping Kassidy off at her sister’s house to be babysat the day the little girl died, “She looks like shit, doesn’t she?” In addition to everything else, Kassidy had (rather ironically, if you think about it) been accidentally hit in the eye by a tee-ball thrown by Evans’ son the night before.
Jeff Marshall, the live-in boyfriend of Bortner’s sister Jennifer and her primary caregiver for the past couple of months, allegedly became increasingly concerned about Kassidy’s regression throughout the day and eventually called 911. Kassidy Bortner was dead by the time emergency personnel arrived.
Evans was found guilty of Second Degree Murder, Second Degree Assault (five separate charges against Kassidy), and Simple Assault (one charge against Amanda Bortner). As things stand now, he will be in jail until 2044. Amanda Bortner was found guilty of Child Endangerment (two counts) in 2002, served jail time, and has since gotten married and evidently moved on with her life.
Wow.
The case is becoming news here in New Hampshire again, though, for two reasons.
First, the Chad Evans Wrongly Convicted Committee, which was created in February of 2010. Despite its admittance of gems like, “Chad palmed Kassidy’s face, in order to get her attention through eye contact, as he had done several other times. However, this time he squeezed hard enough to leave bruises on the lower sides of her face”, though, its intended purpose is to get out the word that Chad Evans is sitting in jail for a crime he didn’t commit … oh, and to compare the paragon of virtue that Evans was (despite a criminal record of domestic violence) with the (also possessed of a violent criminal record) babysitter, Jeff Marshall.
Which probably leads directly to the second point—intense recent media attention, most notably a face-to-face interview with WMUR.
This begs the question, as it’s evidently intended to, does Chad Evans have a point?
Will Delker of the N.H. Attorney General’s Office remembers the Bortner case as “one of the worst cases I’ve done.” He helped prosecute the case and can still vividly remember the horrific details. He said a “conglomeration of injuries” to Kassidy’s abdomen, face, arms and legs essentially liquified her body fat, which sent the fat into the blood stream and caused her lungs to stop breathing.
Delker acknowledged it was a “circumstantial case” but one that included some compelling evidence. In addition to murder, Evans was also charged with breaking Kassidy’s bones, bruising her face and throwing her into a wall, according to indictments filed against him.
Delker said multiple witnesses provided “damning” testimony about signs of distinct pattern injuries Kassidy suffered. Witnesses noticed bruising and fingerprints on her face. Some testified Evans and Amanda Bortner, Kassidy’s mother, began concealing the girl from family and friends and told “preposterous stories” about her injuries, he said.
So what leg does Evans possibly have to stand on? Well, his family has hired “exoneration expert” Morrison Bonpasse of Newcastle, Maine … and Bonpasse expresses optimism.
[Bonpasse] said it appears police thought Evans was “minimizing the seriousness” of things he had done with Kassidy, but said others likely did the same in their police interviews. He indicated none of the adults around Kassidy realized the potential seriousness of her injuries, which visibly manifested themselves in the form of bruises, except for Evans’ ex-wife, who had contacted the Division for Children, Youth and Families shortly before Kassidy’s death.
“I only work for people I believe to be innocent … It doesn’t make sense to me that this man could have possibly done these things to a girl he loved,” Bonpasse said. “It’s totally without evidence except for the bruising.”
Chad Evans had a history of domestic violence. He admitted to both being too harsh physically to Kassidy at times and lying about where some of her “accidental” injuries came from. There was enough evidence, circumstantial though it might have been, for a jury to sentence him to forty-three years in prison.
To be fair to Evans, Jeff Marshall was reportedly no angel, either. Like Evans, he was admittedly too hard on Kassidy, once spanking her hard enough to leave black and blues through her diaper. Why Amanda Bortner would leave her daughter in the care of either of these men is beyond me.
For what it’s worth, I think that Kassidy Bortner was probably being physically abused by both of these men … and that the ultimate blame lies at the feet of her mother. I realize that Amanda Bortner has to go through the rest of her life realizing that her actions and decisions led directly to her daughter’s death.
I’d feel a lot better if I got the sense that this mattered to her.