It took a Yakima County Superior Court jury less than four hours to find Terrence Chip Ogle guilty of murdering his girlfriend's infant son.
But for one juror, it didn't seem as quick as it appeared to outside observers.
"By the time we were allowed to deliberate, all but three of us of the chosen 12 knew where we stood at the time," said Juror Seven, who asked that he be identified only by his badge number.
But Seven said that the jurors carefully discussed their positions and reviewed the evidence. While there wasn't a particular piece of evidence that was convincing, the juror said the weight of the medical testimony helped in determining that Ogle was guilty of killing Alexander "Alec" Lynch.
Ogle was charged with second-degree murder, with prosecutors alleging that Ogle assaulted Alec and that the 15-month-old boy died as a result of his injuries April 27, 2020.
Jurors deliberated for about three hours and 45 minutes before finding Ogle guilty. He is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 26.
Alec's death was the result of a blow to the head that literally cracked open his skull and caused massive bleeding on his brain. Ogle told police at the time that Alec had fallen from an ottoman while drinking a bottle of milk, hitting his head on the floor of the West Valley apartment where Ogle was living with his girlfriend and her three children.
Assistant Yakima City Attorney Brooke Wright, who was serving as a specially appointed deputy Yakima County prosecutor, told jurors in her closing argument that the prosecution does not have to prove exactly how Ogle assaulted Alec or why he did it. She said the evidence and jurors' common sense would show them that Ogle was the only one who could have done it.
She said the attack likely occurred shortly after Marie Kotler, Alec's mother, left for Sunnyside to pick up her other children, leaving Ogle alone with Alec. Ogle had called her while she was driving to say that Alec had scratched his nose on a toy Nerf gun in the playpen, but was OK, and he was asleep when Kotler returned.
"She didn't see anything wrong," Wright said in her argument. "But she never saw him awake again."
Seven said he was surprised that he was empaneled on the jury as he works in law enforcement in the Yakima Valley. But he also noted on his juror questionnaire that he would not blindly accept what a prosecutor said without evidence supporting it beyond a reasonable doubt.
When he found out he was going to be sitting on a trial involving a child's murder, Seven said, he knew from his experience in law enforcement and as a soldier who served in Afghanistan what possible emotions could come up and could keep them in check.
Seven said Wright slowly built up her case, culminating with the testimony of Dr. Carole Jenny, who serves on the child-abuse team at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Jenny described how Alec's injuries "devastated" the child and that he would not have been able to move or take a bottle as Ogle had described.
Jenny, Seven recalled, said Alec's injuries would be the equivalent of an adult being thrown through the windshield of a car in a crash and hitting a tree and, if Ogle were to be believed, then getting up and walking away from it.
"They did a good job gradually getting us into something horrific and feathering it out," Seven said.
Dr. Micheline Lubin of the King County Medical Examiner's Office walked jurors step by step through Alec's autopsy, with graphic photos that caused at least one juror to fight back tears.
Seven said the picture of the skull fracture demonstrated the force with which Alec was hit. He said that was hard to observe, especially as it was a child who should have still had his whole life before him.
"The biggest thing that drove it home to me was (Lubin) said the bruising (on Alec's face and head) happened at once," Seven said, contradicting Ogle's claims that the bruises on Alec's face were from various mishaps over days.
He said there was never a question among the jurors about the medical evidence.
Seven said there were other pieces of evidence that further pointed to Ogle's guilt. One of them was spilled milk on the living room floor. The spill was a neat puddle with an unbroken border on the floor, which Seven said was not consistent with a spill from a bottle that was thrown or dropped as Ogle described it.
In the video of Ogle's interview with YPD detective Mike Durbin, Seven said that even though Ogle sounded like he was crying when looking at a picture of Alec in the hospital, Ogle never reached for a tissue to wipe away tears.
"I'm not a scientist or a biologist, but a dry eye can't cry," Seven said. "That was strong to us in deliberations."
Seven said the defense's suggestion that Alec's mother, Marie Kotler, could have hurt him didn't hold up since Ogle, when questioned by Durbin, said she couldn't have done anything to hurt the child.
Seven said he appreciated the fact that defense attorney Charles Dold and Wright were respectful and professional toward each other when disagreeing.
He also commended the panel's presiding juror, who made sure each juror's thoughts were heard, that doubters were allowed to discuss their concerns and made sure they addressed them.
"We quadruple-checked with (the undecided jurors) and told them we got time, you got time, and you have to live with your decision," Seven said. "This is another person's life. You have to live with your decision."
When Dold and Wright met with jurors after the trial, Seven said, one of the jurors asked Dold to tell Ogle he wished him good luck in his life when he gets out of prison.
During the trial, outside the jury's presence, Yakima County Superior Court Judge Kevin Naught ruled that the state could introduce Kotler's heart-rate data from her Apple Watch as proof she was asleep when Ogle said Alec fell. But Wright, who said she had to weigh whether she wanted to put Kotler back on the stand after her initial testimony, did not introduce it.
When Naught told the jurors about the watch evidence after the trial, Seven said that would have made a difference.
"If that watch stuff had been submitted, we would have been done even sooner," Seven said.
Seven said his jury service is an experience he will not forget.
"Seeing something like that, even in my past professions, it never gets normal," he said. "It really makes you, in my opinion, sit back and forget about the hustle and bustle of the social media world we live in and appreciate life a lot more."
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