A jury has been selected in the Dellia Castile trial.
Jurors are preparing themselves for what could be more than a week of gut-wrenching testimony and evidence which may include horrific photos of the 2011 crime scene where 10-year-old Tramelle Sturgis was killed.
Tramelle’s father, Terry Sturgis, is serving a 140-year sentence for murdering his son and brutally beating the boy's 8 and 14-year-old brothers.
But there's still the issue of Castile, who was living at the house on Washington Street in South Bend, where the crimes occurred last November.
Did she ignore Sturgis' abusive outbursts? Why didn't she report her son to Child Protective Services or the police?
A 14-person jury, consisting of 9 women and 5 men, will soon start trying to answer those questions in a South Bend court room.
“I don’t know what happened, what went wrong, I don’t know, I just don’t know,” Castile told WSBT during an interview in November, 2011.
Castile said she never thought of her son as someone who'd kill a child.
"My son by no means is a monster. I don't care what the media says. My son is not a monster. They don't know my son. I know my son. He's not a monster,” said Castile.
Prosecutors argue she had to know about the abuse. Investigators say she offered to do loads of laundry for Sturgis, even paid him to stop hurting the kids.
“Each one of us has a moral responsibility to report to authorities, to law enforcement, when we have rational or reasonable suspicion that children may be abused,” said Mike Dvorak, St. Joseph County prosecutor, during a November, 2011 press conference.
Castile's defense team won't say what their strategy will be during the coming trial. Prosecutors will portray her as an onlooker who didn't speak up and shares some of the blame.
Castile has been in jail since shortly after Tramelle's death. Her trial is scheduled to last until a week from Friday, but could wrap up sooner.
