Babysitter: Slain 4-year-old was still alive and snoring after midnight

JONESBORO, Ill. -- Justin Hepburn was still alive and snoring when Mia Scott went to check on him at 12:30 a.m. Dec. 11, 2011, but the volume and pace of his snoring had changed, Scott testified Monday in Union County, Illinois, Circuit Court.

Scott, then 14, lived in the neighborhood with Sacha Brown -- whose then-boyfriend, Chris Hepburn, is Justin's father -- and had agreed to spend the night at Brown's home in Ware, Illinois, and watch the 4-year-old so Brown could get some sleep before an early shift at work.

Sometime before 8 a.m., Scott found Justin dead on the floor next to his bed. Brown, who faces charges of murder, aggravated battery of a child under 13 and concealing a homicide, is accused of killing the boy by striking his head against a hard, flat surface, causing a 4 1/2-inch skull fracture.

In court Monday, Scott said she had known Brown all her life and babysat Justin often, although the night of Dec. 10, 2011, was the first time she had spent the night at Brown's home or seen the child sleep.

Scott said everything seemed normal when she arrived about 7:45 p.m. Dec. 10 to find Brown on the couch, drinking a beer.

She said she and Brown spoke for a few minutes, and then she asked to see Justin, whom Brown said was sleeping.

"She instantly got up, put down the beer, said she wanted to go back there with me," Scott said.

Justin was in bed, snoring, Scott said.

"I'm like, 'Oh, well, isn't that cute?' because I never knew that he snored," she said.

Scott said she fell asleep on the couch, watching television, but got up between 11 and 11:30 p.m. to get a drink of water.

She heard Justin snoring and looked into his room, she said.

"He was still asleep -- didn't move a muscle," Scott testified.

About 12:30 a.m., Scott woke again, got another drink of water and checked on Justin again, she said.

Scott found him on the bed with his foot sticking out from the covers, so she tucked him back in before returning to the living room, she said.

Scott said the child was still snoring, but the rhythm had slowed, and the sounds were softer.

"It wasn't as loud as before, but it was still going," she said.

In testimony last week, Dr. Scott Denton, who performed the autopsy on Justin's body, said the snoring sound Scott heard was a symptom of respiratory problems caused by the boy's head injury.

Union County State's Attorney Tyler Edmonds asked Scott whether she had seen any liquid on Justin when she checked on him during the night. Emergency workers have testified the boy had dishwashing liquid on his clothes and around his mouth when they found him.

"No. He was completely dry," Scott said.

Brown woke Scott sometime early the next morning to tell her she was running late for work and had left $30 on the coffee table to pay her for babysitting, Scott testified.

After Brown left, Scott got up and called to Justin to come into the kitchen so she could make him some breakfast, Scott said.

When the boy did not respond, she went to his room, where she found him lying on the floor next to the bed, cold and unresponsive, she said.

"His skin wasn't like ours," Scott told Edmonds. "Ours is warm and able to move. His skin was cold and hard as a rock."

Scott said she did not have access to a telephone, so she ran outside, flagged down a neighbor and asked her to call 911 because Justin wasn't breathing.

"This was the first time I babysitted that they didn't leave a phone for me," she said.

Brown's father, who lived nearby, arrived a few minutes later, checked Justin and called 911 and his daughter.

Paramedics arrived shortly, followed by Brown and Union County Coroner Darryl Rendleman, Scott said.

She said Rendleman mentioned the dishwashing liquid found near the boy's body.

"I said, 'No, that's impossible -- the dish soap was up on the sink,'" Scott said.

She said she didn't notice soap in Justin's room when she found his body.

"To be honest, when I walked in that room, I didn't see no dish soap. That wasn't what I was looking for. ... I seen that he was hurt, and he needed my help," Scott said, choking back tears.

Brown's lawyer, Larry Karraker, asked Scott about Brown's relationship with Justin.

"She seemed like she loved him," Scott said. "All the times I was over there, he called her 'Mom,' but I wasn't a resident in that home."

Scott said she never saw any evidence Justin was afraid of Brown.

"If he got in trouble, he would say, 'Sorry,' but what kid doesn't?" Scott said. "I still say 'sorry' to my mom, and I'm 17 years old."

Also testifying Monday was Sherry Yother, who worked with Brown at the Clyde L. Choate Mental Health and Development Center in Anna, Illinois, at the time.

Brown had been scheduled to work an overtime shift the evening of Dec. 10, 2011, but she called about 9 p.m. and said she wouldn't be able to make it, Yother said.

"She told me that something just came up, that she couldn't come in," she said. "... I didn't think nothing of it at the time."

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