PRINCETON — Joshua Isaiah Boozer died in a Roanoke, Va., hospital on Feb. 9, but someone inflicted his fatal injuries in a Princeton apartment on Feb. 7.

The Mercer County legal system began the process of finding justice Monday for the 6-month-old baby who was removed from life support after suffering head trauma that ultimately took his life.

The state, represented during Monday’s preliminary hearing by Prosecuting Attorney Timm Boggess, charged Katharine Janelle Boozer, 23, of Princeton, with first-degree murder and murder by a parent in the beating death. Meanwhile, defense counsel Thomas Czarnik and Phillip Scantlebury were quick to offer up Boozer’s “sexual partner,” Aaron Lee Johnston, of Montcalm, as a second suspect.

At the close of the hearing, Mercer County Magistrate James Dent ruled there was reason to send the investigation to the June term of the panel.

“No. 1, there was definitely a crime committed, and No. 2, I find there is probable cause [to believe] that the defendant committed the crime,” Dent ruled, closing the proceedings.

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The child abuse case that would quickly turn into a murder investigation began on Feb. 7, when State Police Sgt. M.D. Clemons received the call that Joshua Boozer had arrived at Princeton Community Hospital in critical condition and bleeding from the nose and mouth. Since Clemons was not on duty that day, she notified Trooper 1st Class P.H. Shrewsbury and Trooper R.A. Marsh that they should respond to the call and investigate further at PCH.

As Shrewsbury testified Monday, he recalled that emergency room personnel quickly pulled him aside and explained that they believed the baby had experienced severe head trauma.

The officers then opened the investigation, transporting Katharine Boozer to the Princeton state police detachment and explaining her Miranda rights, which Shrewsbury said the 23-year-old with a psychology degree could, and did, understand.

During her first official statement, the trooper said Boozer advised her son “was just fussy” most of the previous day, Feb. 6. She said she and the baby had been alone the entire day and night before and that she found him bleeding from the nose and mouth when she woke him on Feb. 7, at about 7:30 a.m.

Her statement quickly changed.

A subsequent statement included Johnston, who she then claimed had been at her Pepperidge Apartments home the entire night of Feb. 6 and into the morning of Feb. 7.

“She described Mr. Johnston as an intimate partner, as a sexual partner,” Shrewsbury said.

The couple reportedly ordered Chinese food Feb. 6, had dinner and spent the evening together, before falling asleep in the living room. The baby was reportedly quiet through this time, as Boozer said she had given him a bath at approximately 5 p.m. and put him to bed about 6 p.m.

The following morning, Shrewsbury testified, Boozer said she woke Johnston to help her scrape snow from around her car. When the two returned inside, Boozer went into the nursery to wake Joshua, allegedly finding him bleeding from the mouth and nose.

“She basically said, ‘I don’t know how that happened,’” Shrewsbury testified.

Meanwhile, according to statements Johnston made to Shrewsbury and as he took the stand Monday, he allegedly stayed in the living room while Boozer woke the baby.

“I heard the baby make a moaning noise,” Johnston said, adding that Joshua Boozer’s eyes were allegedly half open and his breathing was labored when Boozer carried him into the living room.

“I’ve never heard no kid make that noise before,” Johnston said, denying several times that he had done anything to harm the baby.

Boozer used a suction cup in an attempt to clear Joshua’s mouth and nose, she reminded Johnston that he could not be found at her apartment.

Boozer is employed at Southern Highlands Community Mental Health Center, and Johnston is a patient reportedly being treated for a psychoeffective disorder and substance abuse problems. Boozer and Johnston were violating ethics rules by being involved in a personal relationship, and Johnston testified she knew she’d lose her job if they were discovered.

He left the apartment on foot and reportedly called a cab from Taxi One to transport him to a cousin’s home in Bluefield, where Trooper Marsh later located him and picked him up for questioning.

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Joshua Boozer’s condition was more severe than doctors at Princeton Community Hospital could treat. The baby was transported to Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where he died.

Shrewsbury attended the autopsy, where he testified he saw “an extremely bad skull fracture,” on the baby’s head. He estimated the break was approximately five to six inches long.

“The skull was fractured so bad that the brains were actually protruding,” Shrewsbury said.

The officer also testified he observed bruising on the baby’s genital area. When questioned about those injuries, Boozer allegedly replied, “Maybe I squashed his balls.”

Since being assigned to the case, Shrewsbury said he had executed two search warrants on the Boozer apartment. During those searches, he allegedly found blood in the crib, on the wall, on a bumper pad that had been removed from the crib and on the door to the nursery.

When Czarnik asked if he had identified a murder weapon, Shrewsbury indicated he believed he had.

“Right now, I’ve found a mobile that was in the crib,” he said.

The officer also testified that he considered a wine bottle found in the garbage but ultimately dismissed that object because there were no marks to identify it as the weapon.

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Although the wounds to the baby’s lower abdomen and genital area were weeks old at the time of his death, they were a subject of interest Monday, due to the fact that they indicated a potential history of abuse and launched a Child Protective Services investigation.

Clemons had assisted in that investigation, interviewing the director of Mother Goose Day Care and setting up an appointment with another day care employee.

According to her investigation as of Monday, Clemons said Boozer took the baby to day care one day in January, alerting workers that her son’s scrotum was “a little red.” She allegedly believed the symptom to be a sign of a lactose allergy and indicated she didn’t think the condition was cause for concern.

Clemons said the day care workers believed differently. When they changed the baby’s diaper, they reported finding his genital area “black and blue” and very swollen. Mother Goose workers contacted Boozer immediately and asked her permission to take him to PCH for treatment. She allegedly refused.

Clemons testified that her reaction was, “She was busy. She was a single mother and needed to work.”

Ultimately, the day care director reportedly took the child to the hospital anyway, where medical officials allegedly agreed that there was a serious problem.

At various times, defense counsel asked witnesses if they were aware that the CPS investigation was inconclusive as to whether that bruising was inflicted intentionally or accidentally. Neither Shrewsbury nor Clemons could confirm that; Clemons testified that she did not believe the investigation had been closed at the time that Joshua Boozer died.

When medial officials concluded there was no way a lactose intolerance could cause the reaction the baby exhibited, Boozer allegedly told investigators that she accidentally “kneed” the baby once as she laid him in the floor to change his diaper. During a statement she gave Marsh, however, she said Johnston hurt him unintentionally.

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While the state sought probable cause to send Boozer’s case to the grand jury, the defense was clearly concerned with implicating Johnston, who has a record of mental illness and previous run-ins with law enforcement officers.

According to Czarnik, Johnston was slated to plead guilty before Circuit Court Judge Omar Aboulhosn last week, on an unrelated charge, but stopped the plea when his defense counsel advised the court he was uncertain Johnston was competent to enter the plea.

For his part, however, Johnston remained steadfast in denying he did anything to hurt Joshua Boozer. He told the court Monday that he had held and fed the baby a few times, always in Boozer’s presence, and that he had changed the child’s diaper a couple of times.

Referring to the injuries the baby received on Feb. 6-7, Czarnik asked, “You had nothing to do with it, right?”

“No,” Johnston replied.

Under cross examination, Boggess asked a similar question, inquiring, “Did you ever go in there and do anything to harm that baby?”

“No, sir,” Johnston answered.

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At the end of the hearing, Scantlebury renewed a motion to dismiss the charge of first-degree murder, arguing that the state had presented no evidence that Boozer planned to inflict fatal injuries on her baby and then committed the crime knowingly and with malice.

Boggess countered that a preliminary hearing was only designed to determine probable cause and that it was “premature and not appropriate to dismiss” any charges Monday.

Boozer remained composed and showed no emotional response for the duration of the hearing, even as her parents quietly cried in the back of the courtroom and media members cringed at graphic autopsy testimony.

Shrewsbury testified her demeanor was much the same during his interview.

She declined comment when confronted by a TV crew on her way to a holding cell, where she awaited transport to the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver.

— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.