As the capital murder trial began Wednesday for a local man accused in his 5-month-old son’s death in 2021, prosecutors told the jury they intend to prove his actions directly led to the child’s death, while defense attorneys pointed to prior injuries and undiagnosed conditions as the cause.

Cody Timothy Webb, 37, who could face up to life in prison if convicted in the Dec. 17, 2021, death of his son, Hatcher, was arrested five days after his death and initially held without bond. He was released on a $750,000 bond on Aug. 15 after prosecutors opted to waive the death penalty in the case.

In her opening statement, Deputy Prosecutor Caitlin Bornhoft told the seven-man, five-woman Garland County Circuit Court jury that Hatcher and his 2-year-old sister, Harper, were alone with Cody Webb that night at his home on Bellaire Drive and he was “solely responsible for the care of the two children.”

The children’s mother, Heather Webb, had moved out earlier that same day because she and Cody Webb were in the midst of a separation that started a month or so earlier, Bornhoft said, noting Cody Webb had hired an attorney to begin divorce proceedings. He had been “seeing another woman” and after Heather Webb found out “that pushed it over the edge.”

She said Hatcher had been at day care most of the day and was brought home by Cody Webb around 5:15 p.m., when he and the children briefly FaceTimed with their mother, which “would be the last time Heather saw her son alive and well again.”

Between that call around 5:20 p.m. and 6:37 p.m., when Cody Webb called 911, Hatcher allegedly suffered injuries that included bleeding and swelling on the brain, multiple rib fractures, and retinal hemorrhages, Bornhoft said. Emergency responders worked on him for a long time as he was first taken to National Park Medical Center and then transferred to Arkansas Chil

dren’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 11:39 p.m.

Bornhoft stressed Cody Webb was the only one in the house with the children and “the only one who knows what truly occurred” since the 2-year-old “was not able to verbalize any memory of it.”

She noted that night was not Hatcher’s first at Children’s since he was injured while with Heather Webb on Sept. 16, falling off a kitchen counter while in a car seat. He was determined to have a “small minor brain bleed” and a “bilateral jaw fracture” and was seen by numerous physicians, held overnight and released.

He was injured again seven days later when he was hit in the head with a vacuum cleaner while at day care and was taken to NPMC again and scanned which showed his earlier injury had “resolved itself.” He had follow-up checkups at Children’s on Oct. 5 and Oct. 29 and was “given a clean bill of health” and neither parent observed any problems, Bornhoft said.

After the incident on Dec. 17, while at NPMC where Hatcher was still being treated, Cody Webb was briefly questioned by Hot Springs police Detective Mark Fallis and told him Hatcher had been “scream crying” for 30 minutes and he was trying to calm him down and was concerned he might have “shaken something up,” she said.

Doctors at Children’s expressed suspicions about the injuries “which began to take on a new outlook,” Bornhoft said, noting Fallis was told the injuries were caused by “a high force trauma” which if accidental would involve “a car accident or a fall from a very, very tall height.” Fallis was told the injuries were “consistent with child abuse.”

Cody Webb was interviewed again the next day at the police department and described how he had been holding Hatcher and wondered if he was “holding him too tightly” or possibly brought him up to his chest too forcefully several times while trying to calm him. He denied hitting or kicking Hatcher or throwing or slamming him against anything.

Bornhoft played a portion of the recorded interview with Cody Webb and told jurors to “ask yourself if he’s being entirely truthful, not truthful at all or partially truthful, downplaying and minimizing his actions.”

She stressed this was “not a case of rush to judgment by law enforcement,” noting he wasn’t arrested until days later, and “not a case of getting one bad opinion from one doctor.” She said Hatcher was treated by “30 plus of the most specialized doctors in Arkansas” and their consensus was what lead to the state’s conclusion.

Bornhoft said Hatcher’s death was “due to the defendant’s knowing conduct and he should be held accountable.”

In her opening, Webb’s attorney, Erin Cassinelli, told the jury not to believe everything Bornhoft said because “she got things wrong” and stressed this was “going to be a tough case. The loss of a child is tragic and a tough subject to deal with.”

She said this was “not a simple story” but a “medically complex story” that “parents have nightmares about.” She said the earlier incidents resulted in “festering and undiagnosed injuries” which led to Hatcher’s death, but once investigators decided he was a victim of abuse and was with Cody Webb “he must be responsible and no other scenario was considered ever by anyone.”

Cassinelli described how Cody Webb, the son of a doctor who at one time operated a TCBY franchise, later decided he wanted to become and EMT with LifeNet. “That was his calling” and he later trained and became a certified paramedic and had actually resigned from LifeNet to join the Jacksonville Fire Department.

She noted how he and Heather Webb wanted children and “had difficulties in pregnancy” so both of their children were born through In vitro. She acknowledged he had an affair and wanted out of the marriage, but Heather Webb resisted and wanted to stay married. Eventually, they agreed to divorce and share custody of their children and “things were going well.”

The night of the incident, Cassinelli said Hatcher was “being fussy” which was not unusual and became inconsolable, she said, noting Cody

Webb tried to calm him but then he “started breathing weird” and had a seizure prompting him to call 911 and began CPR. During the CPR by him and later by other responders, Hatcher was “not getting enough oxygen” which would lead to some of the injuries described and the CPR very likely caused his rib injuries.

She said Fallis first questioned Cody Webb during a vulnerable moment at NPMC when his son was still being worked on and “Cody was trying to figure out if it was his fault. What parent wouldn’t do that?” She noted the way he described holding Hatcher when it happened “was normal for what a parent does.”

Cassinelli told the jury Hatcher’s first injury on Sept. 16 was determined to be “very unusual” and “didn’t look like a typical hemorrhage,” and then used a chart to explain how the bleeding that occurred had created a space “that wouldn’t normally exist” below his dura layer, hence the term subdural, and “more space between the brain and skull than typical.”

“It was attributed to the fall, but it could be genetic,” she said, and while such injuries usually “resolve on their own, sometimes they don’t.” She said the state argues the earlier injuries “didn’t matter” and “were not a factor” and “it could only be a violent act” that caused Hatcher’s death.

Cassinelli noted Hatcher was suffering from multiple symptoms, including respiratory problems, but when his parents asked doctors they were told it was nothing to worry about “so they stopped asking.” She said Hatcher’s head had “grown exponentially” which was “a red flag” but no testing was done.

As for the autopsy by Dr. Charles Kokes, the medical examiner, who ruled Hatcher’s death a homicide, Cassinelli said it was “a substandard and inadequate autopsy” and he actually disposed of evidence while conducting it. She noted he didn’t preserve the brain or take samples and “threw away important evidence.”

She said Hatcher had a lot of medical issues going on “for most of his life and no one knew it” and many of them could have caused the seizure Cody Webb described that night. She also noted there was no evidence of any external injuries on Hatcher from that night.

Cassinelli said the prosecution is trying to prove Cody Webb “acted deliberately” and “knew what he was doing would likely cause the death of his child.” She said the defense was going to present testimony from “specialists in the field” who “will have done the work” and not just the opinion of those “who worked on (Hatcher) for a few hours.”

She said Hatcher’s death was the result of “a complex medical issue sadly not addressed until it was too late,” and stressed that Cody Webb “did not kill his son.”