Trial starts for man accused of torturing 3-year-old boy, burying body in concrete
The man charged with killing 3-year-old Evan Brewer and burying his body in concrete is facing a jury trial this week, and attorneys are expected to present their opening statements in the case as early as Tuesday afternoon.
Stephen Bodine is accusing of torturing Evan for at least two months with the help of the boy’s mother, Miranda Miller, before murdering him on May 19, 2017. The couple lived together with the boy in a rental house at 2037 S. Vine in Wichita.
The landlord discovered a giant concrete and wood structure in the home’s laundry room on Sept. 2, months after any of the rest of Evan’s family had seen him alive and Bodine and Miller were in jail for not turning Evan over to his biological father, who had custody.
When investigators cracked the concrete block open, they found Evan’s body inside wrapped in a Ninja Turtle bed sheet.
He suffered horrific and heartbreaking abuse including being forced to wear a dog collar and earn his clothes and food.
Bodine is charged with first-degree murder, child abuse, kidnapping and aggravated child endangerment in connection with Evan’s abuse and death.
He’s also charged with aggravated assault and criminal damage to property for allegedly threatening Evan’s father, Carlo Brewer, with a hatchet and puncturing the tire of a vehicle after Brewer went to the Vine Street address looking for his son last August. Brewer didn’t know Evan was already dead at the time.
Jury selection was underway Monday and Tuesday morning.
Opening statements are expected Tuesday afternoon, a spokesman with the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office said. Witness testimony will start afterward.
At a court hearing in April, Miller testified that leading up to Evan’s death he’d been ill for three days — possibly from being forced to swallow large amounts of salt for angering Bodine — and was refusing food and drink.
When the boy gagged on doughnuts and juice his mother force fed him and didn’t eat quickly enough, the couple beat him and sent him to stand in a corner for hours with his hands behind his back until he collapsed.
Evan died after Bodine slapped him and hauled him into the bathroom to stop his screams, Miller testified. When Bodine came out, Evan’s head was wet and he was unresponsive, she said.
In the months before Evan died, Bodine and Miller refused to feed him, beat him for not greeting Bodine in the right tone, cussed at him and smacked him for not lying still in bed.
Video of the abuse captured by a motion-activated home surveillance system the couple set up in the house shows Evan stripped naked in the basement of the home with a belt tightened around his neck.
Miller is also charged with her son’s abuse and death but she worked out a plea deal with prosecutors that will put her away for up to 27 1/2 years in exchange for testifying against Bodine. She’s expected to take the stand at some point during her boyfriend’s trial.
Evan’s death has drawn attention not only because it involves the disturbing abuse of a child but also because it’s raised questions about how well the child protection system in Kansas works and because the boy is the grandson of former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer.