Stepdad guilty of killing boy

A jury late Friday found Joseph J. Davis guilty of murdering his 17-month-old stepson.

After nine days of testimony, the jury deliberated more than five hours before delivering the guilty verdict.

Davis, who maintained his innocence throughout the proceeding, told the jury he did not know what had happened to his stepson, Maliki Wilburn, when the boy’s mother found Maliki one evening last August lying on his back with severe head injuries.

The boy had been in Davis’ care for less than 20 minutes while his mother drove to a nearby vape store to buy liquid for her e-cigarette. When his mother, Dacia Cheyney, returned to the apartment on the 800 block of Fifth Street in Coeur d’Alene, she found the boy lying on his back with his jaws clenched shut, his eyes vacant and his extremities stiff.

Davis told police he had been in the bathroom for a few minutes and left the boy unattended as Maliki cried because his mother was gone. The boy often threw fits, and he was very active, often climbing on furniture, so it was likely he had climbed on a nearby table and fallen off, fracturing his skull, Davis said.

Davis was arrested after the Aug. 26 incident and charged with injury to child, a felony. However, the charge was amended to first-degree murder after Maliki died at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane a few days later.

His autopsy revealed massive head injuries caused by blunt force trauma, which several expert witnesses said were similar to injuries sustained by people who fell off buildings or were struck by cars.

Witnesses for the defense countered that the head injuries could have been caused by a child simply falling from an 18-inch coffee table, as Davis maintained.

Prosecutors Art Verharen and Laura McClinton pointed to an unblemished coating of dust on the table the boy had supposedly climbed on, Davis’ apparent waffling when asked pointed questions and the fact that the child, according to medical experts and day care providers, was a healthy boy until the 20-minute timeframe that he was left alone with Davis.

Deputy public defender Jeanne M. Howe countered that her client did not see what happened, and medical experts called by the defense seemed to corroborate that Maliki’s injuries may have been accidental.

Davis was incarcerated in the Kootenai County jail on $1 million bond in the months leading up to his trial that started April 25 and ended Friday. He could be sentenced to life in prison. Sentencing by District Judge Scott Wayman is set for July 12.