Around 8:30 a.m. on March 13, 2024, doctors at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston received a page about two incoming critical patients: a pregnant woman and an 11-year-old child.
They prepped the trauma bay and awaited the arrival of Jayden Perkins and his mother, Laterria Smith, Dr. Andrea Geddes, a surgeon at the hospital, testified Thursday.
“He arrived and the emergency medical team … were performing compressions,” she said.
On the fourth day of testimony in the trial of Crosetti Brand, 39, Geddes described the traumatic injuries suffered by Jayden and his mother. In a stroke of good luck though, Smith’s unborn child had a healthy heartbeat, the doctor said.
Proceedings were unexpectedly paused Thursday when a juror suffered a medical event in the courtroom. Cook County Judge Angela Petrone ordered the juror, who appeared to recover, excused and subbed in one of the alternates.
In a fortunate coincidence, the doctor was still on the stand and tended to the woman until paramedics arrived.
Brand is charged with murder, attempted murder, home invasion and aggravated domestic battery. He is representing himself in the trial and has argued to the jury that he acted in self-defense.
The trial, scheduled for about three weeks, is winding down its first week after jurors heard days of harrowing testimony about the March 13, 2024, attack in which Jayden was killed as he tried to protect his mother from the assault. It will break Friday and resume Monday.
Resuming her testimony after the interruption, Geddes said Smith suffered more than a dozen stab wounds, but underwent a successful surgery. In Jayden’s case, the doctors were not able to revive the boy.
Prosecutors have accused Brand of forcing his way into the family’s Edgewater apartment in the 5900 block of North Ravenswood Avenue after being spurned by Smith. Just one day after he was released from prison, Brand stabbed Smith multiple times before thrusting the knife at Jayden when he tried to intervene, prosecutors alleged.
Smith and Brand began a relationship when Smith was in high school, but later rekindled it before she tried to break it off again as he grew more controlling, Smith has testified. Smith reported Brand to authorities when he began to harass and threaten her.
As a result, Brand was sent back to prison for violating the terms of his release after he served a sentence for attacking another woman. But he was released March 12, 2024 in a controversial decision by the Illinois Prisoner Review Board.
The jury was sworn in on Monday and so far has heard testimony from Smith, her former live-in fiance and her mother, Jayden’s grandmother, among other witnesses. They also viewed police body camera footage that depicted the bloody and chaotic aftermath of the attack.