Jury shown items used in girl’s torture

One by one, the items used to torture 4-year-old Summer Phelps in the last months of her life were shown Wednesday to a Spokane County Superior Court jury.

A black dog collar used to shock the child when she was too loud. A blue mop used to press her against a tall bathtub where she was forced to wash her urine-stained clothes and bedding. Black belts and kitchen utensils used to hit her.

Spokane Police Department Detective Mark Burbridge, the lead crime scene investigator in Summer’s death, methodically presented the evidence Wednesday – including chunks of Summer’s long red hair found in the kitchen garbage and in a trash bin behind the Dresden Apartments after Jonathan Lytle rushed the drowned child to the hospital on March 10, 2007.

Wet footprints observed by responding police officers that night leading out of apartment No. 25 “concerned me that evidence had been removed from the apartment after Summer was taken to the hospital,” Burbridge said.

The jury has already been told by a forensic investigator that the footprints were those of Summer’s stepmother Adriana Lytle, accused of homicide by abuse in the child’s death. She has already pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing at the end of her husband’s trial. Jonathan Lytle has pleaded not guilty to the charge of homicide by abuse.

Burbridge said he observed unusual injuries on Summer’s body at Deaconess Medical Center that prompted him to retrieve several utensils from the Lytles’ kitchen, including a soup ladle, a large carving fork and wooden spoons.

“When people abuse children and punish them severely they often use kitchen utensils. I was looking for utensils commensurate with her injuries,” Burbridge told the jury.

Summer was pressed so hard against the 21-inch tall bathtub that she had severe linear bruising across her pelvis, the detective said, showing a photo of the injuries to the jury. Superior Court Judge Michael Price asked Burbridge not to display the photo to members of the public watching the trial.

The Lytles also punished Summer by ordering her to sit for hours tearing up pizza boxes. “Thousands” of Little Caesar’s pizza box pieces were found in the apartment, Burbridge said.

Another Spokane police detective, Theresa Ferguson, also testified Wednesday about her interviews with both of the Lytles shortly after Summer’s death.

Jonathan Lytle blamed the death on his wife but also conceded he’d routinely hit his small daughter with belts and his hand, bought the dog collar and once bit Summer, Ferguson said.

Jonathan Lytle also told her that his wife used “every method she could think of” to discipline Summer, Ferguson said. He also said he wanted Adriana to quit hitting Summer.

But on the night Summer died, Jonathan Lytle told Ferguson he heard screaming in the bathroom but “stayed out of it,” the detective said.

“Did you ask him how Summer died?” asked Spokane County chief criminal prosecutor Jack Driscoll.

“He said, ‘I think she was knocked in the water,’ ” Ferguson replied.

The state is expected to rest its case next Wednesday, Driscoll said. With only a few defense witnesses, the case could go to the jury late next week.