REGINA — Police officers have taken the stand to describe the physical condition of two small sisters who are at the centre of a criminal case in Regina.
One officer says the older, four-year-old sister, who died, was covered in bruises when he first saw her in hospital.
Another officer says the two-year-old girl, who survived, was also bruised and unresponsive to anyone around her.
The children's caretakers, Kevin and Tammy Goforth, are on trial facing charges of second-degree murder in the death of the older girl and causing bodily harm to the younger sibling in 2012.
The Crown alleges that the girls were malnourished, kept in poor conditions and at times restrained.
Defence lawyers Jeff Deagle, who is representing Tammy Goforth, and Noah Evanchuk, who is representing Kevin Goforth, have urged the jurors not to rush to conclusions, both saying the Goforths did not intentionally harm the girls.
On Thursday, Sgt. Derek Lamer testified he first saw the four-year-old at the Regina General Hospital on the night of Aug. 1 2012.
He testified to her being "small, petite, not conscious, skinny, with bruises all over her body, and hooked up to machines."
He ordered police units to the Goforth home, and when officers arrived, they saw a blue Ford Ranger driving away. A search on that car led them to another home where the two-year-old girl was located.
Sgt. Shelly Sulymka was the first to arrive with the mobile crisis unit at that address on the same night.
Sulymka testified she found the two-year-old in bed, with bandages and gauze on her left leg.
When the girl was carried to the kitchen, Sulymka said, "she sat on the floor. She was what I would call non-responsive; she didn't blink, she didn't acknowledge anyone around her and she didn't move."
Under cross-examination, Lamer testified that when he saw the Goforths at the hospital, they were "curled up on the sofa together, crying."
The trial has previously been told the sisters had been seized by Social Services and had lived in nine different places.
Court has been told the Goforths fell under a specific class of care-giver that doesn’t have legal status with the ministry, and there were no required checks on the situation at home after the girls were placed in their care.
An agreed statement of facts says the four-year-old died of a brain injury after suffering cardiac arrest on July 31, 2012. She was also malnourished and dehydrated.
