Ashley Flowers

As if his, in my mind, as if his face were pushed into the bowl of water and then the water ran down the front of him when he was pulled out.

It's cut and dry when someone immediately dies from drowning.

This one is complicated because of the fact that Jojo didn't die right away, right?

In the hospital for days.

During this hearing, the medical examiner testifies that there was water present in Joseph's airways.

But that doesn't necessarily mean drowning because Joseph had been on a ventilator for several days before he died.

And the ME testified that fluid in the airways can be consistent with prolonged ventilator use.

So according to this ME, there is just no way to narrow down the list by testing for drowning in cases like this, which means the autopsy can say asphyxia, meaning he couldn't get oxygen.

It can say that there is a concern for something, but it can't say how.

The oxygen deprivation happened.

Now, the state's argument is that if the toy chest theory doesn't work and drowning can't be ruled out and there is no trauma, then the only explanation left is that someone caused the asphyxiation.

And the only someone in that house was Brandon.

But the defense argues that it was an accident inside the toy chest.

How are we still talking about this toy chest?

Like, it feels irrelevant at this point.

I guess because the ruling is undetermined.

And maybe, maybe because this idea about a kid dying by being locked in a toy chest didn't just come out of thin air for this case.

I mean, I did a quick Google search and there are stories of children, mostly younger than JoJo, getting stuck in toy chests.

And I think it's a lot of these like old chests that are often passed down like family heirlooms.

And they obviously don't pass like modern safety checks or anything like that.