Murder trial continues

Testimony continued Wednesday in the second-degree murder trial of Kerry Bertrand, who is charged in the Aug. 21, 2013, death of his step-daughter, Sklyar Credeur.
Bertrand has pleaded not guilty to the charge and his defense team of Thomas Alonzo and David Rubin appear to be trying to plant the idea that Credeur, 20 at the time of her death, could have died by electrocution when a laptop computer fell into the tub in which she was found.
Dr. Mark Dawson, Acadia Parish Coroner, testified that he initially suspected electrocution when he arrived at the scene at 140 Victor Drive in the Branch area.
He described the scene as “in disarray” with “towels and a shower curtain on the floor” of the small bathroom.
Dawson said he questioned family members and ordered an autopsy.
Dr. Terry Welke, forensic pathologist with the Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office, performed the autopsy and was next to testify.
Welke said he determined the “cause of death” as drowning and the “manner of death” as homicide.
Welke said bruises he discovered on the sides of the victim’s neck and “pin-point bruising” on her eyelids were consistent with “strangulation or attempted strangulation.”
He also testified that a “significant” bruise was discovered on the crown of Credeur’s head.
Asked by Alonzo if that bruise could have been the result of a fall in the bathtub, Welke said, “She would have had to fall straight down on her head, with her feet up in the air, for a bruise to occur there.”
As to the electrocution theory, Welke said there were no outward signs of electrocution, but admitted that a 120-volt shock might not leave any tell-tale traces on a body.
He went on to say, however, that a laptop computer such as the one found in the tub with Credeur has a “ brick” in the power cord that “steps down” the voltage from 120 at the outlet to “around 19 volts.”
“That would give you a little tingle, but not enough to electrocute you,” he said.
Welke also testified that the outlet in the bathroom in which the computer would have been plugged is a ground fault interrupter, designed to protect from electrical shock by interrupting a household circuit when there is a difference in the currents in the “hot” and neutral wires.
That testimony was backed up later by testimony from Audie Hanks, owner of H&H Electrical Contractor, who said he was called to the house to test the outlet.
Hanks said the outlet “had no voltage” when he and an employee tested it. It did, however, work properly when the “reset” button was pushed. That led him to believe, he testified, that the outlet was operational.
Under cross examination, however, Hanks said he did not know who had been in the bathroom or around the outlet from the time the body was discovered until he arrived to test it.
Deputy Lonnis Domingue, the first to arrive at the scene at about noon on Aug. 21, 2013, testified that he met the victim’s mother outside the residence and entered through a “busted open” front door.
He said he found Credeur’s body in the tub and noticed the laptop across her upper torso. He said he could not remember if the laptop was plugged in, but added that he “probably wouldn’t have reached into the water to check for a pulse if I had seen it plugged.”
Asked during cross-examination if he knew if anyone else had been in the bathroom before he entered, Domingue answered, “Apparently. There was a dead child in the tub.”
Sgt. Glen Johnson followed Domingue, basically repeating Domingue’s account of entering the residence and searching the rooms.
The residence was subsequently cleared by law enforcement and family member, including Edmond Credeur, Skylar Credeur’s uncle, were allowed to enter.
Edmond Credeuer testified that he discovered Bertrand lying at the edge of the attic in the house.
Edmond Credeur that he had been called to the residence by family members. After officers cleared the house, Edmond Credeur said he and other family members entered and he decided to check the attic closer.
He said he opened a 6-foot stepladder that was in the hall near the attic opening and climbed up, switching on the electric light in the attic as he did so.
He said he noticed that one of the lights at the far end of the attic did not come on, so he worked his way toward it.
“When I bumped the bulb, it came on,” he said, adding that that’s when he saw the figure of a man at the edge of the attic, where the roof came down to meet the eave.
“When he sat up and I shined the flashlight in his face, I saw who it was,” Credeur said. “He stood up and, right away, said, ‘I didn’t do it’.”
Credeur said Bertrand also “mumbled something about ‘floating in the bathtub’.”
Credeur’s step-son Corey Arnaud corroborated his step-father’s testimony that Bertrand had scratches on his face when he was found.
Arnaud said when he asked Bertrand why he was hiding in the attic, Bertrand responded, “If you found your stepdaughter dead in the bathtub, what would you do?”
Arnaud said Bertrand kept repeating, “I didn’t do it.”
During earlier, lengthy testimony, Bethany Harris, DNA analyst with the Acadiana Crime Lab, said during testimony that no DNA entered into evidence could “definitively” be traced to Bertrand. However, a number of samples from the computer found in the tub and fromt he wasstband of Skylar Credeur’s underwear “could not exclude Bertrand.”
Deputy Marcus Deville, who was working as a Corrections Officer in the pairsh jail while Bertrand was incarcerated there, testified to overhearing an electronically monitored conversation Bertrand had with another inmate in which Bertrand allegedly told the inmate that he had “cleaned up the crime scene real good,” adding that the “only mistake” he made was not checking under the victim’s fingernails.
Ryan LeBleu, an inmate at the same time Bertrand was incarcerated, testified about how Bertrand said Skylar Credeur was the reason he was in jail and that he “was going to make her pay.”
LeBleu, who is under psychiatric care for bi-polar, schizo-affective post traumatic stress disorder, also said Bertrand told yet another inmate that he was going to drown his stepdaughter and “throw her body in the swamp.”
Under cross, LeBleu could not remember the day, date, time, month or even year he was incarcerated.