CHEYENNE — Joseph Hanson of Cheyenne was found not guilty of first-degree murder in the August 2025 death of his 4-month-old son on Wednesday after a Laramie County jury deliberated for about 90 minutes.
Hanson, 24, who testified in his own defense on the final day of his three-day trial, was shaking after the verdict was read. His attorney, public defender Marty Scott, put his arm on Hanson’s back and they shook hands.
Most of Hanson’s family, who sat in the front row behind him, were crying but were not able to see him until he was officially released from custody. He had been in jail since his arrest in April.
Juliette Martinez, 23, Hanson’s wife, did not testify. He blamed her for the death of their baby, who was referred to as “TH” in court, and testified that he did not injure his son or in any way cause his death.
Earlier in the week, Scott indicated he wanted to call Martinez, who was Hanson’s girlfriend at the time of TH’s death but is now his wife, as a witness even though she was expected to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
She is also charged with first-degree murder and could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
‘They Made It Up’
Scott, in his closing argument, said the prosecution was “sloppy” in the presentation of the facts of the case in its final attempt to convince the jury that Hanson was guilty.
“They made it up,” Scott said repeatedly about the accusations that Hanson committed child abuse that resulted in the death of TH.
He said that not only did the state not prove that Hanson was guilty of first-degree murder, but it did not make a case that he committed the underlying crime, child abuse.
In his closing argument, Laramie County Assistant District Attorney William Edelman said Hanson admitted to detectives he made a “rough diaper change” after he had an argument with Martinez.
Edelman claimed that when Hanson pinched TH’s legs together and shoved his legs into his chest, it resulted in fractures that led to the baby’s death.
Hanson told detectives that he heard a “pop” sound” from the baby when he was done. He also told them there was a 50% chance that he had injured TH, but did not say he believed he fractured any bones.
Hanson was much more confident when he testified Wednesday that the diaper change, while rough, did not harm TH. He said the “pop” sound was like a knuckle cracking, not a bone being broken.
The baby’s twin brother, JH, and older sister AH are still in the custody of the Wyoming Department of Family Services.
Because child-abuse charges were being investigated, the agency removed the children from the care of Hanson and Martinez after they drove to the Cheyenne hospital on Aug. 8, 2025, because it appeared TH was having a seizure.
Hospital officials suspected child abuse.
TH was diagnosed with “nonsurvivable diffuse hypoxic injury and severe cerebral edema” after he was airlifted from Cheyenne Regional Medical Center to Children’s Hospital Colorado.
Dr. Stephen Cina, a forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, testified Tuesday that TH’s swollen brain was caused by a lack of oxygen and blood flow.
Death Ruled A Homicide
Cina determined the baby’s death was a “homicide by unspecified means.”
He said during the month TH was in the hospital’s intensive-care unit, some of the seven bones that were fractured in his legs, wrist and a rib had partially healed, but he could not determine if they were a factor in the infant’s death.
“Most likely it was abusive head injury,” Cina testified. “This kid died because of the action of another person.”
That person was not Hanson, according to the verdict returned by the Laramie County District Court jury of nine women and three men found. The verdict was read at 4:35 p.m.
In court Wednesday, Scott asked about conversations he had with Martinez when they were staying in an Aurora, Colorado, hotel while TH was in the hospital.
“She told me, ‘It’s all my fault.’ I told her, ‘You don’t know that,’” Hanson said. “She said, ‘Yes I do.’”
Hanson said Martinez told him she “shook and choked” their baby, but quit when TH stopped crying.
On cross-examination, Edelman pointed out that Hanson didn’t go to the police after Martinez told him she had harmed TH, and still hadn’t done so for eight months after the disclosure.
“You put (Martinez’s) needs ahead of the needs of TH?” he asked.
“Yes,” Hanson replied.
On Tuesday, when Edelman played a video of detectives asking him the same question, the defendant said he was “ashamed” of himself for doing that.
Hanson said juvenile authorities told them after TH was seen at the Cheyenne hospital that they were investigating him and Martinez for child abuse.
He added that the Department of Family Services had taken their daughter, AH, and TH’s twin brother, JH, away from them. He said he was advised to speak only with his attorney.
But on April 8 of this year, after he and Martinez were stopped by police for a traffic violation and taken to the station to be separately interviewed about TH’s death, Hanson waived his Miranda rights and began talking without an attorney present.
No 'Motherly Bonding'
TH was cared for by Martinez and Hanson, but Hanson also worked as a Cheyenne locator and owned his own drywall business so he was often not at home.
Edelman said that when Hanson was interviewed by Cheyenne police detectives in April, he gave four different times and locations of where he was when Martinez told him what she had done.
On Tuesday, the jury heard an excerpt from his interviews in which he said he didn’t know Martinez was responsible for TH’s death until September 2025.
On Wednesday, Amy Day, the wife of the couple’s pastor, said she visited with them in Cheyenne before they left for the Colorado hospital.
She testified that Martinez said she had stopped the baby’s breathing. Day said Martinez didn’t explain how she did that.
Hanson was interrogated for 3 1/2 hours on April 8, then arrested and taken to the Laramie County Detention Center. The next day he was interviewed by detectives for another four hours.
Hanson told police he knew Martinez didn’t love TH because she always took care of what his twin brother needed first, and didn’t have the “motherly bonding” that she did with JH.
After their birth, TH weighed only 3 pounds, 8 ounces, and was having trouble breathing. The family took JH, who was healthy and weighed 6 pounds, home. But TH remained in the hospital for more than a month.
After TH was admitted to Children’s Hospital Colorado, Hanson testified Wednesday, he said he stayed with TH for a day and a half. Martinez stayed at the motel.
“I wanted her to read to him, to talk to him,” Hanson said, adding that Martinez refused to stay with the baby.
