Jurors in Bradley Dial’s trial must determine who’s telling the truth, the murder suspect’s son, who says he saw his father beat his former girlfriend’s 8-year-old son, or Dial’s runaway teenage daughter, who took the stand on Monday to call her brother a liar.
Dial, 38, is on trial charged with first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter of a child in the death of Jose “Joey” Torres, who was found beaten to death at Dial’s Hobe Sound mobile home on June 26, 2000.
If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
Dial’s 15-year-old daughter, Shawna Rivera, who was at the mobile home that weekend and when Joey was found dead in bed by his mother, Tammy Huff, told jurors she initially lied to authorities when she said she saw her father physically punish Joey in the days before he died.
Later, she changed her statement and implicated Huff, who is also charged with murder in the boy’s death. Rivera said Huff was the one who beat the boy.
Rivera said the night before Joey died, she saw Huff, 32, get a leather sandal to beat the boy in a bedroom. Rivera said she heard Joey cry out during the beating.
Joey died from “a severe beating that caused his death by blunt trauma,” a medical examiner determined.
Huff, though, has testified that Dial caused her son’s death by kicking him in the stomach two days before he died.
On the witness stand, Rivera told Dial’s attorney, Robert Udell, that she decided to come forward after seeing news reports that her brother, Curtis Rivera, 14, testified that Dial frequently beat Joey for not doing sit ups properly.
Udell asked her whether her father “beat Joey to death.”
“It’s not true,” Rivera said.
Last week, Curtis Rivera said he saw his father physically discipline Joey, including stomping on his bare feet and throwing him into a wall.
Under cross-examination by prosecutors, Shawna Rivera acknowledged changing her statement several times and repeatedly said she couldn’t recall what she had told authorities.
She blamed many of the inconsistencies on her mother, Dial’s ex-wife Cassandra Rivera, who she said forced her to implicate her father falsely because of a deep animosity between the two.
Rivera admitted that she ran away from home shortly before Dial’s trial was scheduled to begin because she feared her mother would try to stop her from testifying.
“I wanted to be a witness. That’s why I ran away,” she told Assistant State Attorney Richard Seymour.
The trial continues on Wednesday, following the Veterans Day holiday.
Melissa E. Holsman can be reached at .
