Monday, April 11, 2011

Son demonstrates for jury how Dad drowned 2-year-old girl (Norman, Oklahoma)

The son was apparently "visiting" dad DONALD REESER when Reeser "allegedly" drowned his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter. See our previous posts. So much for daddies not getting custody or visitation....

http://newsok.com/defendants-son-demonstrates-dunking-at-trial/article/3556501

Murder defendant Donald Reeser’s son demonstrates dunking for Cleveland County jurors The son of a man accused of drowning a 2-year-old girl used a doll to demonstrate to a Cleveland County jury how his father dunked the child under water shortly before she died. Donald Reeser is on trial for first-degree murder in Allie Croom’s death.

BY JANE GLENN CANNON Oklahoman
Published: April 8, 2011

NORMAN — The son of a man accused of drowning a 2-year-old girl used a doll Thursday to show a Cleveland County jury how his father dunked the child under water shortly before she died.

Allie Croom She drowned in Lake Stanley Draper on June 18, 2009.

Brady Reeser, 7, held the doll by its waist and made three up-and-down motions to demonstrate how his father Donald Reeser, 31, plunged Allie Croom into Lake Stanley Draper at a family outing June 18, 2009.

Donald Reeser is on trial, charged with first-degree murder in the girl’s death. Reeser said the child’s death was an accident.

Brady Reeser told jurors his father pulled the girl off a rock by her ankles before dunking her under water several times.

“He put her head under water and brought her back up … he did it fast, three or four times. Then he picked her up and carried her to the shore,” Brady Reeser said.


Son is sole witnessAllie Croom had gotten into trouble a short time before that and had been placed in time out, the boy said.
His father was angry with the girl when he dunked her, he testified.

Brady Reeser, then 5, was the sole witness to the episode that led to the child’s death. Her mother, Amber Croom, testified she had taken the girl’s 3-year-old sister to the car to get cookies, leaving Reeser, her boyfriend, to watch the 2-year-old.

When she returned, she said, everyone was out of the water “and I could see Allie. She was wobbling. She didn’t act right.”

As she approached, she said, Donald Reeser scooped up Allie Croom “and turned her where I couldn’t see her face … but her breathing was funny, and I had a real bad feeling.”

Amber Croom said she and Donald Reeser began to argue “because he kept telling me I was overreacting, and I kept saying something was wrong with her.”

Donald Reeser became so angry with her “he slammed my head against the car’s passenger side window,” Amber Croom testified.

Allie Croom was unresponsive and sounded as if she was gasping for breath as they drove away from the lake, the mother testified.

When the child started vomiting, Donald Reeser drove to Midwest City Regional Hospital, where doctors worked for about an hour to revive the child before pronouncing her dead, the mother said.