Mother sobs during trial when prosecutors show photos of son

LE MARS (AP) — An Iowa woman charged in the death of her baby left the courtroom sobbing during the first day of her trial when prosecutors showed photos of her lifeless son in a swing set.

Cheyanne Harris’ reaction caused a break in her trial Wednesday at the Plymouth County Courthouse in Le Mars, where the trial was moved from Chickasaw County because of pretrial publicity.

Harris, age 21, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death. She was arrested in October 2017 after medics found 4-month-old Sterling Koehn dead in the swing in a dark, sweltering bedroom in August.

An autopsy shows he died of malnutrition, dehydration and an E. coli infection caused by being left in a bug-infested diaper for more than a week.

The boy’s father, Zachary Koehn, was convicted of the same charges and later sentenced to life in prison in a separate trial held in late October and early November last year in Mount Pleasant.

The Waterloo Courier reported from the Harris trial Wednesday that items needed to keep the baby alive were found in the Alta Vista apartment where Harris and Koehn lived, according to sheriff’s investigators.

Coleman McAllister, an Iowa assistant attorney general who is helping Chickasaw County prosecute the case, told jurors that this isn’t a case of a family that didn’t have the resources or experience to properly care for an infant.

“Evidence in this case will show Sterling suffered in the last hours and days before his death,” McAllister said. He said the boy had been left “unloved, uncared for, unaided by his mother.”

One of Harris’ defense attorneys, Nichole Watt of Waterloo, said Harris suffered from depression.

“The monster in this case is mental health. The monster in this case is depression,” she told jurors in her opening arguments.

Court documents show that the defense attorneys indicated they may use a defense of diminished responsibility, and may call an expert witness from the University of Iowa who is a professor in psychology and brain sciences.

Harris and Koehn were arrested and charged on Oct. 25 after an investigation by the Chickasaw County Sheriff’s Department, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner.

A state medical examiner’s report said the child weighed less than 7 pounds and had not had a diaper change, a bath or been removed from the swing seat in more than a week. The examiner determined he died because of denial of critical care.