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Sam Penrod ReportingThe prosecution has rested its case in the trial of a Springville couple accused of killing their daughter by forcing her to drink water as punishment.
After three weeks of presenting evidence and witnesses in the case, prosecutors have rested in the child abuse homicide trial of Richard and Jennete Killpack. Beginning Monday the defense will present its side of the story to the jury.
All of this goes back more than three years now, when four-year old Cassandra Killpack died. During the trial experts testified that the girl drank so much water it caused something known as water intoxication, where her brain swelled so much she died. In fact, one expert testified she drank as much as a gallon in a short amount of time.
There was also evidence that her parents forced her to drink the water as a punishment. Richard and Jennete Killpack contend they were using the water as part of therapy they had been taught to help the girl with behavior problems.
Before she was adopted Cassandra had been severely abused and the therapy was supposed to help her. Prosecutors say that using water was not therapy, but was child abuse.
The Killpacks are charged with child abuse homicide, which carries one to fifteen years in prison if they are convicted.
The defense is expected to call expert witnesses beginning Monday. It is expected they will present their case over the next two weeks, before the case will go to the jury.
