CHEYENNE — The first-degree murder trial of Joseph Hanson in the death of his 4-month-old son began Monday in Laramie County District Court, and his defense attorney said that “we are pointing the finger” at the child’s mother, Juliette Martinez, to place the blame.
The prosecution depicted Hanson, 24, of Cheyenne, as an uncaring man who allegedly left his “very fussy” baby in a closed room with no supervision while he went to look for a friend at night.
He then took his time getting the boy to the hospital after a seizure the next morning, and acted indifferent when told by police that his son needed to be sent on a life flight to a Denver hospital.
Dr. Denise Abdoo, a physician at Children’s Hospital Colorado, was the first prosecution witness. She testified that when the baby, identified as TH in court, was brought in on Aug. 9, 2025, his injuries were obviously critical.
Based on medical imaging done in Colorado, Abdoo said the Child Protection Team at her hospital knew that the infant had severe swelling of the brain, oxygen deprivation injuries, bleeding on the brain, fractures in both legs, a spinal fracture and a possible broken rib.
Abdoo, who testified that she’s examined thousands of children since 2003, said the baby's extensive injuries were “consistent with child physical abuse and abusive trauma.”
She said TH also had “continuous seizures that were difficult to stop.”
Abdoo said TH was diagnosed with “non-survivable diffuse hypoxic injury and severe cerebral edema.” She explained that the swelling of the baby’s brain was caused by a lack of oxygen and blood flow.
The physician said she did not have any more contact with the parents after their baby went to ICU because he could not breathe on his own. The boy’s condition did not improve during the month he was in intensive care.
Abdoo said she learned that the parents made the compassionate decision to end life support, and TH died on Sept. 8, 2025.
Couple Is Now Married
The couple has a daughter who was about 18 months old at the time of the investigation and TH’s twin brother, identified as JH.
The twins were born premature, and TH’s low weight and other complications kept him in the hospital for two months. But doctors said he was growing at a normal rate when he was sent home.
Hanson’s defense attorney, Marty Scott, made the comment about Martinez being culpable for her son’s death when the jury was not in the courtroom.
He asked Judge Peter Froelicher to use his judicial discretion to allow Martinez to testify, even though she’s expected to invoke her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself.
Laramie County Assistant District Attorney William Edelman objected, but the judge said he’ll allow Martinez to testify, though only if her lawyer is present in case she changes her mind.
In their opening statements, prosecution and defense attorneys presented starkly different interpretations of Hanson’s actions when TH had what appeared to be a seizure on Aug. 7, 2025, and was eventually taken to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center.
Edelman said Hanson told police that TH was “very fussy” that evening and his crying kept the family up. Martinez took TH’s twin brother and their older sister to the bedroom, and TH was left in Hanson’s care.
Edelman said TH’s father couldn’t calm his baby, so he put him in a room alone, shut the door and went out to see a friend.
When that person was not home, the prosecutor said, Hanson returned to his house, fed the baby at 4 a.m., and was picked up for work by his brother at 7:30 a.m. He was back home in about four hours.
Suffering A Seizure?
Martinez noticed that TH appeared to have a seizure after waking up, and she allegedly sent a video of her baby to Hanson’s mother, who told her to take him to the hospital immediately.
TH’s parents took 45 minutes to get to the emergency room, Edelman said. A nurse took care of the baby, who was still having seizures, for the next eight hours. His parents and two siblings went home.
When doctors in Cheyenne realized that TH needed to be immediately transported to a Colorado hospital, Edelman said they called Hanson and Martinez to get their consent. He said they tried nine or 10 times and neither Hanson or Martinez picked up.
But Scott laid out his case that Hanson is innocent to the jury of 10 women and four men chosen Monday morning. Two alternates will be dismissed when the case goes to the jury.
Scott said the couple had an argument that night and Martinez brought TH out to Hanson, told him to take care of the baby and returned to bed with the other children. This, he said, was not their normal routine.
Scott said when Hanson left briefly to see if a friend was at home, TH had stopped crying and was sleeping, and his client returned within a few minutes.
When Hanson came home from work at 11:30 a.m. and saw that TH was having what appeared to be a seizure, he took his mother’s advice and drove the family to the hospital.
Deleting Text Messages
It took 45 minutes to get to the hospital, Scott said, because Martinez was allegedly in the bedroom secretly deleting text messages from her phone and trying to find information about "shaken baby syndrome.”
Scott also told the jury that he will present evidence that Martinez “confessed to her pastor’s wife that she stopped TH’s breathing.”
When the trial reconvened after lunch and before the jury was brought in, Edelman called Froelicher’s attention to Scott’s statement and said “it’s the definition of hearsay.”
The defense attorney called it a “statement of interest,” describing a situation in which someone admits something to a third party, which he claimed is an exception to the rule against admitting hearsay as testimony.
The judge did not rule on the matter.
The last witness to testify Monday was Cheyenne Police Department Detective Tim Campolong, who was working as a police officer on Aug. 8, 2025, when he was dispatched to Hanson and Martinez’s home in southeast Cheyenne.
Campolong said Martinez answered the door, and he told her the hospital needed her or Hanson to sign the consent forms to life flight TH to Colorado. She said they had been sleeping.
The officer asked if Hanson was home, then took him outside to talk.
Edelman asked Campolong about Hanson’s demeanor when he was told about the life flight. He responded that the defendant was “relaxed and unfazed.”
Dad’s Reaction ‘Abnormal’
The prosecutor asked him if he considered that a normal response for someone who was told such bad news.
”It was an abnormal reaction,” Campolong said.
Scott objected, saying the question asked for the witness to speculate about how his client felt. The judge sustained the objection.
After Campolong left the stand, Edelman told Froelicher that he was “rocketing” through his witnesses and he only has three more — two detectives and a doctor — who will appear Tuesday. He said he will then rest his case.
Scott said he doesn’t believe in prolonging trials and that the jury should get the case sometime Wednesday.
Martinez’s trial is scheduled to start after Hanson’s trial is completed. If either or both Hanson and Martinez are convicted of first-degree murder, they could receive life in prison.
