August 10, 2016
By Paul Joseph, Paragon News Director –
A Canute man has been found not guilty of child abuse by injury charges.
After almost eight hours, the Beckham County jury of six men and six women returned the not guilty verdict Tuesday night at 7:25 pm for 26-year-old Nicholas Kyle Merz.
At one point, midway through their deliberations, the jurors asked for a video interview that Merz had given earlier before the trial, the same video interview that the jurors had seen during the trial, but wanted to see again.
According to a probable cause affidavit, investigators believed Merz was responsible for the injuries of a ‘then,’ three-month old baby boy that was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury.
At the time, Merz was the boyfriend of the mother and had been left with the baby on occasion as a caregiver.
The defense rested just before noon and the case went to the jury for deliberations around 11:45 on Tuesday morning.
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