Hearing delayed again for woman charged in infant’s death

COEUR d’ALENE — The preliminary hearing for a Rathdrum woman accused of killing her infant son and cutting the child open with a box cutter was delayed for a second time Friday as public defenders said they had not seen some of the evidence in the possession of prosecutors or police.

A preliminary hearing in magistrate court allows attorneys to argue their case before a magistrate judge, who determines if enough evidence exists for a defendant to be tried.

Elizabeth B. Keyes, 22, has been in the Kootenai County jail since April 16 when she was charged with first-degree murder in the death of her newborn child.

Her bail is set at $1,000,000.

Defense attorney Linda Payne was granted a request Friday to delay the preliminary hearing until she and an expert witness can view a series of slides from the autopsy.

A judge in an earlier hearing ordered the slides be turned over by June 5 to Dr. Barbara C. Wolf, a Leesburg, Fla., physician who was hired by the defense as an expert witness.

Payne said the order has not been complied with. She said for defense counsel to properly prepare for the preliminary hearing, consultation with the expert about the slides must occur.

The hearing was postponed until 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in Coeur d’Alene’s First District Magistrate Court.

Keyes is accused of killing her baby boy and leaving the newborn in a plastic bag on the back porch of the Rathdrum home where she slept on a couch in the garage.

Keyes told police she did not know she was pregnant when she gave birth April 14 in an upstairs bathroom of the house on the 7000 block of west Lund Street, in Rathdrum, according to authorities.

Keyes allegedly strangled the child and used a box cutter to slit open the baby’s stomach.

Attorneys last month agreed to not disseminate information to the media about the case.

Prior to next week’s hearing Magistrate Mayli A. Walsh must determine whether to have the preliminary hearing live at the courthouse despite a Supreme Court order to hold the hearing remotely, or via Zoom.

Defense attorney Jay Logsdon said holding the meeting remotely is illegal and prevents Keyes from physically confronting witnesses.

Keyes is facing the most serious charge the state has at its disposal “and faces not only life imprisonment, but her execution,” Logsdon wrote in a brief in court records. “This court should find that physical confrontation of witnesses is a right required in preliminary hearings.”

If the court rules against having an in-person hearing, Logsdon said a grand jury must be summoned.

According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime unless they have had a face-to-face hearing, or were charged by a grand jury, Logsdon said.

Defense attorneys have asked the court to allow them to submit as evidence two audio tapes. They want the court to hear a three-hour interrogation by Kootenai County sheriff detectives when Keyes had not been given her Miranda rights, and another one-hour audio of a second interrogation, when Keyes had been Mirandized.

According to the Supreme Court’s latest COVID restrictions, juries are not allowed to convene until August.