DA: Man kept boy on closet shelf until death

By Mike McPhee  The Denver Post

Chandler Grafner, the 7-year-old boy who weighed only 34 pounds when he died last year, was the victim of acute diabetes that caused his body to devour itself, according to defense attorneys in the murder trial of Chandler's guardian.

"This is not a case about long-term starvation," attorney David Jones told the jury Tuesday during opening statements in the first-degree murder trial of Jon Phillips.

"It wouldn't have mattered how much he had been eating. The secret killer of diabetes caused Chandler Grafner's body to feed on himself in a very rapid amount of time."

Phillips, 27, and his girlfriend, Sarah Berry, 23, are charged with first-degree murder and other charges in the May 2007 death of Chandler. His trial began Tuesday afternoon in Denver District Court. Berry will go to trial on the same charges on Aug. 11. Phillips had custody of Chandler and his younger half brother, Dominick Phillips, after the boys' mother, Tina Grafner, lost custody of them because of abuse. Phillips and Berry agreed to have the boys live with them in their Tamarac Square apartment in southeast Denver.

Phillips was the father of Dominick but had no biological connection with Chandler.

Deputy District Attorney David Lamb, however, told the jury that Phillips had forced Chandler to live in the bottom shelf of a linen closet "in a space no larger than an oven."

Phillips "denied him food and water, left him to sleep in his own feces and urine," Lamb told the jury as it winced at photos of Chandler's emaciated body. "Chandler Grafner spent weeks in a dark hole until he died."

He said Dominick Phillips showed police where Phillips had cleaned out the closet after Chandler's death and thrown a plastic air mattress and soiled carpet into a nearby trash container. Those items, he said, tested positive for Chandler's DNA.

But defense attorney Jones told the jury the closet was used for a cat that wasn't housebroken, and that the tests showed very low levels of Chandler's DNA and weren't designed to detect animal DNA.

He said a medical expert will testify he found protein cells in areas of Chandler's body "where it wouldn't be if he had been starved."

He also said that Chandler's red blood cells will show that his glucose levels 90 to 120 days before he died were twice the normal level for a person his age.

"He was eating. Dominick will testify they had plenty of food and that they ate dinner the night before Chandler died," Jones said.

He said Chandler's death was caused by his body going into a state of keto acidosis, a severe condition in which the body begins to metabolize fat because of a lack of insulin.

Prosecutor Lamb told the jury the abuse of Chandler began in January 2007, when Phillips punished him for stealing candy by making him take an icy shower, then hit him in the right ear so hard it turned black. Teachers noticed the bruised ear and called authorities. Chandler eventually was pulled from school and wasn't seen after Easter, April 8, until he died on May 6, 2007.

The trial is expected to last three weeks.

Mike McPhee: 303-954-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com

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