Merwin Guilty Of Deadly Abuse Jury Convicts Man For Injuries Leading To Death Of Toddler

Kevin Merwin stood in the center of a human storm Saturday, a guilty man.

A jury of seven women and five men, their faces pale and drawn, had just found the 24-year-old computer repairman guilty of the abuse that led to the death of his wife’s child.

At first, only restrained sobs came from the more than 40 spectators filling the courtroom.

But the silence grew into shrieks of anger, wailing and joyous yelps as the two sides in the case reacted to the verdict - guilty of felony injury to a child.

“One more piece of justice,” cried Donald Buss, father of 2-1/2-year-old Alexander Buss, the boy who died not quite a year ago. “It’s the right thing.”

But from across the courtroom Merwin sobbed, “I never hurt him.”

Merwin’s friends and family pelted Kootenai County Deputy Prosecutor Lansing Haynes with insults and profanity.

“You’re a liar.” “Burn in hell,” they screamed as he and his wife tried to leave the courthouse. Michelle Buss-Merwin, the dead boy’s mother, blocked the prosecutor in a hallway, shouting at him.

A bailiff had to usher her out of the way.

At the crux of the weeklong trial was a single question: Did Alexander Buss die of an accidental fall or was he abused?

Michelle Buss-Merwin, who was dating Merwin when her son died, has remained supportive of the man she married two months ago.

But the boy’s father and family have insisted from the beginning that Merwin was abusing Alexander both before and during the time of his death.

Before Alexander died, Michelle was living with Merwin and his parents at their home near Athol. Merwin’s three daughters from a previous marriage would come visit.

On July 18, Michelle went to work and Merwin stayed home alone to baby-sit Alexander, his 4-year-old sister, Jessica, and Merwin’s three biological children. They spent the morning playing outside in a small plastic swimming pool, Merwin testified.

After lunch, Merwin brought Alexander inside for a nap, laying him down on a bed to change him. Merwin testified earlier this week that when he turned his back, the boy stood up. Merwin turned back around in time to see the boy appear to faint and topple over backward off the bed.

Alexander died the next day at Sacred Heart Medical Center. He had severe bleeding and swelling in and around his brain as well as inside his eyes.

Throughout the trial, prosecutor Haynes tried to show that those injuries could not have been caused by a simple fall.

Several doctors who examined the boy testified that the extensive injury to the toddler’s brain and eyes had to have come from abuse. The injuries they saw could only have been caused by a violent car accident or a drop from 30 or 40 feet - not a fall from the top of a bed.

“This was a forceful, forceful injury, not something from an ordinary childhood fall,” Haynes said during his closing argument.

But throughout the trial, the defense tried to show that Alexander could have struck his head and been injured earlier in the day, even before falling off the bed. He had seemed extremely tired in the late morning and had even been seen crying at one point, Merwin testified.

During his closing arguments, defense attorney Frederick Loats suggested the boy could have been knocked down by the family greyhound, fallen and hit his head on the wooden deck outside of the house, or fallen out of the plastic swimming pool.

The jury spent Friday and part of Saturday deliberating.

As the verdict was read, Michelle Buss-Merwin sat like a statue for a moment, then fled the courtroom, tearing away from family members who tried to hold her back.

Bailiffs allowed the jurors - some shaking, others on the brink of tears - to exit the courtroom first. They left quickly, looking at no one.

Through the confusion, Merwin struggled to breathe. “Breathe, breathe slowly,” his mother urged him, her arms wrapped around him. Merwin, who will remain free until sentencing, faces up to 10 years in prison.

Despite Merwin’s conviction, Michelle said after the trial that she continues to believe her new husband is innocent.

“I’ve seen him with his other three children, I know he’s not the type of person who would hurt Alex.”

But Donald Buss has no doubt of Merwin’s guilt. He said that before the boy died, Alex told him Merwin was abusing him.

“When Alex passed away I put two toys in his arms and flowers on his lap and I told him he would get justice,” Buss said, before heading to the cemetery to put balloons on his son’s grave.

“Now we’re going to talk to Alex and tell him, ‘Buddy, we did it.”’ Alexander and his 4-year-old sister, Jessica, were born to Donald Buss and Michelle Buss-Merwin. Before Alexander died, the two children had been splitting their time between their parents, who were in the middle of a divorce.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CASE PENDING The trial of Kevin Merwin was the first of two such cases in Kootenai County. A Rathdrum couple is awaiting trial on injury to a child charges after the death of 2-year-old Christina Campanelli. Federico Cortez was charged with injury to a child after his girlfriend’s daughter died of head injuries in September. The girl’s mother, Eileen Campanelli, also was charged. They will be tried separately. As in the Merwin case, Cortez and Campanelli contend the toddler fell and hit her head. But doctors say the child’s swollen brain and the blood in her eyes indicates she was struck in the head or severely shaken. On Friday, Cortez and his attorney sat in on the Merwin trial, listening intently to closing arguments. Trial dates for Campanelli and Cortez have not yet been set.