Mother convicted of murder for killing 4 year old she believed was gay

Jessica Dutro (L) and four year-old Zachary

Jessica Dutro, 25, was convicted of seven counts including murder, murder by abuse and second-degree abuse in Oregon yesterday.  The jury took less than an hour to come to unanimous decisions for each count.

Dutro’s young daughter testified that she saw Dutro and her boyfriend Brian Canady beat Zachary Dutro-Boggess to death one day before his 4th birthday.

“They beat up my brother, then he died,” the girl told her counselor. “I seen them.”

From Oregonlive.com:

To a Tigard detective, she said, “Jessica and Brian, they kept hitting him and punching him. He didn’t listen to them so they kicked him and punched him and stuff and they kept doing it and doing it. … They knew he were sick and stuff. And they didn’t tell anybody.”

Washington County jurors took a little more than an hour to reach a unanimous verdict. They found her guilty on all seven counts, including murder, murder by abuse and second-degree assault.

Dutro showed no reaction to the decision, read about 5:15 p.m. Wednesday.

The case drew widespread attention after prosecutors asked the court to allow Facebook messages from Dutro into evidence.

In one message to her boyfriend, Brian Canady, Dutro wrote using a slur that Zachary would be gay. “He walks like it and talks like it ugh,” she wrote. That made her angry, she added, and directed Canady to “work on” Zachary “big time.”

Prosecutors told the court the message showed Dutro’s motive for subjecting Zachary to a pattern of abuse. Judge Don Letourneau deemed the messages admissible.