Couple on trial for death of 2-year old in 2003

Jury selection started Wednesday in the trial of a La Quinta couple accused in the 2003 death of the man’s 2-year old son.

Derrick Allen Brown and Patricia Ann Brown are charged with the Jan. 16, 2003, murder of Deetrick Brown, Derrick’s child from another relationship.

The Browns were arrested in June 2003 when authorities searched their home in the 51000 block of Avenida Velasco.

The boy died at Loma Linda Children’s Hospital about two months shy of his third birthday.

The day before his death, he suffered a seizure that was caused by “acute and chronic abusive head trauma,” according to a declaration prepared in support of an arrest warrant.

The Browns were charged with murder, but a judge who presided over a preliminary hearing in October 2003 ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to proceed to trial.

A decade later, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office and the sheriff’s department reexamined the case and submitted new evidence that resulted in the re-filing of charges against the Browns. They were re-arrested on Jan. 16, 2013, 10 years after the boy’s death.

Early last year, Patricia Ann Brown’s daughter, Jasmine Nyx, told News Channel 3 that prosecutors had the case wrong saying, “Whatever abuse Deetrick suffered, he suffered before he got to us.”

She insists that Derrick and Patricia Brown are good parents, who did everything they could to get Deetrick Brown medical help.