{"id":8696,"date":"2011-06-01T04:50:14","date_gmt":"2011-06-01T09:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=8696"},"modified":"2011-06-02T02:53:24","modified_gmt":"2011-06-02T07:53:24","slug":"second-darst-trial-begins-with-prosecutions-witnesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2011\/06\/01\/second-darst-trial-begins-with-prosecutions-witnesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecution begins second Darst trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Assistant County Prosecutor Eva Yarger (left) shows Deb Booth of Van Wert County Children's Services photos of injuries sustained by Logan Darst in April 2010. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His first trial ended with a deadlocked jury, but David Darst is back in Van Wert County Common Pleas Court this week for a new trial on charges he physically abused his 9-week-old son, Logan.<\/p>\n

The new trial didn\u2019t proceed smoothly, with jury selection taking several hours Tuesday morning. Court officials had to seek outside the courtroom for prospective jurors after the initial jury pool was exhausted during voir dire<\/em>. After jury selection, the prosecution, under the direction of Assistant Prosecutor Eva Yarger, began to build its case against Darst, who is accused of causing injuries, including two subdural hematomas — basically bruising of the brain caused by clotting blood under the skin — to his then-9-week-old son in April 2010.<\/p>\n

Several prosecution witnesses were called, including Darst\u2019s mother-in-law, Detective Sergeant Jeff Blackmore, Deb Booth of the Van Wert County Children\u2019s Services Agency and Dr. Laurence Kleiner, chief of pediatric surgery at Children\u2019s Hospital in Dayton.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Defendant David Darst listens as the prosecution builds its case against him for alleged physical abuse of his then-9-week-old son, Logan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Kleiner, who testified by means of a video deposition, talked about the injuries to young Logan and his opinion that the injuries were not accidental in nature.<\/p>\n

Sgt. Blackmore also talked about his interviews with Darst and the story he gave about nearly dropping Logan while babysitting the youngster and how he trapped his head on a soft armchair in which he was sitting with the baby — an action he said caused the bruising around Logan\u2019s brain and other injuries, including bruising on areas of the chest and back.<\/p>\n

The boy later died, but not from injuries alleged to have been caused by Darst, but apparently from a rare type of cancer.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s testimony will likely include Dr. Lori Vavul-Roediger of Children\u2019s Hospital, who testified in person during Darst\u2019s first trial, but will do so this time in a video deposition similar to Dr. Kleiner.<\/p>\n

The question for the defense, which is headed by local attorney Scott Gordon and also includes attorney Dillon Staas, will be whether to have Darst again testify, as he did during the first trial. Darst\u2019s wife, Latricia, also testified for the defense during the first trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor His first trial ended with a deadlocked jury, but David Darst is back in Van Wert County Common Pleas Court this week for a new trial on charges he physically abused his 9-week-old son, Logan. The new trial didn\u2019t proceed smoothly, with jury selection taking several hours Tuesday morning. Court officials had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-03 14:04:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}