By TAMMIE TOLER
Princeton Times
—
PRINCETON — Attorneys for a Princeton woman charged with killing her infant son have petitioned the court to drop the case.
“I haven’t gotten a single piece of paper on the case,” defense counsel Thomas Czarnik said Tuesday, reporting that the state had not handed over the evidence collected in the aftermath of Joshua Isaiah Boozer’s February death and Katharine Janelle Boozer’s arrest.
The baby arrived at Princeton Community Hospital on Feb. 7, unconscious and bleeding from the nose and mouth. When doctors determined Isaiah Boozer needed more medical help than was available locally, he was transported to a Roanoke, Va., hospital, where he died two days later.
West Virginia State Police trooper P.H. Shrewsbury served as the lead investigator on the case, testifying during a preliminary hearing that he believed the murder weapon to be a plastic mobile that had once been attached to the victim’s crib.
Boozer, who was charged with child abuse resulting in injury when her baby arrived at PCH, soon found herself facing a first-degree murder charge, as well as a child abuse resulting in death charge.
Meanwhile, her defense attorneys, Czarnik and Phillip Scantlebury, implied that her boyfriend could be behind Isaiah Boozer’s death.
As of Tuesday, Czarnik said the state had failed to comply with court-mandated discovery rules that require the state to turn over evidence against the defendant.
In addition, Czarnik reported that he asked the court to make the state hand over Katharine Boozer’s driver’s license, which was seized when the state police investigation began.
Neither motion had been ruled on, as of last report. A pretrial hearing is set in the Boozer case on Aug. 11 before Circuit Judge Derek Swope.
Boozer, who remained in custody at the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver between early February and mid-July, was released on bond and home confinement earlier this month.
— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.
