LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- It was an emotional day of testimony Wednesday in the trial of Mollie Shouse, the woman accused of murdering her 2-year-old son after she left him in her car last year.
Prosecutors say Shouse was high on drugs when she left her son in her car for several hours outside her apartment in Lyndon in May of 2011. When Shouse's mother found him, he was already dead.
On Tuesday, Shouse's mother told jurors that she knew her daughter smoked marijuana, but said Shouse did not take any other drugs to her knowledge.
Attorneys had argued over what pictures would be shown to jurors, and once the photos were displayed, Shouse put her head down and began crying uncontrollably while the Medical Examiner described details of the autopsy performed on Kenton Brown.
Judge Olou Stevens called a short recess to allow Shouse time to compose herself. He admonished her, saying he believed her emotions were genuine, but she needed to maintain composure in order for the trial to continue without interruption.
The Medical Examiner told jurors she had determined the manner of Kenton's death an accident. She did say Kenton's diaper was soaked with urine and wearing clothes that did not fit him.
The night before Kenton was left in the car, one friend recalls Shouse was acting differently.
"A little slow I guess. A little different than normal," the friend said on the stand.
It was when that friend left, that another acquaintance of Shouse says she started messaging him, wanting to meet him at his apartment.
"Persistent as in could I provide her with something, which would be marijuana," says Jeffrey Burch.
Jeffrey Burch testified he and Shouse occasionally smoked marijuana together.
His girlfriend told the courtroom that wasn't all, saying that they also took Xanax as well.
On the night in question, Burch says Shouse arrived to his apartment with Kenton in the car.
"I gave her a joint, or maybe less than a joint," says Jeffrey Burch.
He testified that they never smoked marijuana that night, and that Shouse home around 3 a.m.
The next morning when he couldn't reach her, he called her mom.
"And let her mom know that Molly is not answering. She's telling me she needs to be at your house at 10:00, and I'm worried, because this is not like her," says Jeffrey Burch.
Shouse's mom has testified she went to the apartment to find her daughter asleep, and Kenton dead in the car.
While testimony is expected to continue in this trial, prosecutors maintain that Shouse was high on drugs when she left the boy in the hot car.
Shouse is also facing drug charges after police found marijuana in her apartment.
Authorities say they did find drugs and a purse full of pills in her apartment that were later determined to be Xanax and oxycodone.
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