Man found guilty in killing fetus sentenced

UPDATE @ 3:03 p.m. (April 28):

Tanner Hopkins was sentenced to 46 years to life in prison, the maximum sentence possible.

Update @ 1:39 p.m. (April 5):

The jury found Tanner Hopkins guilty on all counts. He will be sentenced April 21, but faces a minimum of 15 years to life in prison, and a maximum of 46 years to life in prison.

Update @ 1:25 p.m.:

The jury has reached a verdict in the case of the man accused of kicking a pregnant woman in her belly and killing her 7-month-old fetus. We have a reporter in the courtroom, and we’ll bring you the verdict as soon as it’s announced.

First report:

Chaenin Taylor testified in court that she was up against a wall in Tanner D. Hopkins’ bedroom when he repeatedly slammed her pregnant stomach against the floor and kicked her.

To illustrate, Taylor picked up a tissue box and smacked it against the witness table.

“This is me and Tanner takes me like this and does like this three or four times, and he starts to kick me in my belly and just continues to hit me,” Taylor said in her testimony Tuesday morning in Hopkins’ murder trial in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court.

Hopkins, 25, of Dayton, is on trial for murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, felonious assault and having weapons while under disability for the Jan. 13, 2015, death of a 7-month-old female fetus.

Taylor said she covered her stomach with her arms.

Taylor said Hopkins swore at her and said, “I hope you and that baby both die.”

Taylor testified that she only remembers bits and pieces of what happened after that. She said that after Hopkins left and went downstairs, she fed the dog a treat to distract it from barking as she left the house and wandered into the chilly night.

During a sometimes contentious cross-examination by defense attorney Theodore Valley, Taylor testified that she didn’t recall sending and receiving text messages and phone calls while at Hopkins’ house.

Taylor told Valley that she didn’t trust Hopkins after he allegedly assaulted her in December 2014 when she refused to get an abortion. Taylor said she couldn’t recall whether she texted her aunt before or after the alleged assault or whether she called 911 or asked anyone else to call 911.

Taylor testified she did willingly go to Taylor’s house at his invitation and have sex with him that day.

Registered nurse Jama Perry testified that she stopped her car and went to help Taylor, who was laying on the ground in the middle of an intersection.

The nurse told jurors Taylor was distraught, physically hurting, crying and asking for help for her and her baby. The nurse also said that the only name Taylor mentioned was Devon — Hopkins’ middle name.

Taylor told Montgomery County assistant prosecutor Emily Sluk that she didn’t remember being taken to the hospital, where she had a partial hysterectomy and, later, a gall bladder removal.

But Taylor said she did remember waking up at the hospital.

“Everybody was standing around me and I asked them, ‘Where was my daughter at?’” Taylor told Sluk, who asked what Taylor learned about her unborn daughter she was going to name London. “That she didn’t make it.”

Sluk showed jurors photos of Taylor from the hospital that appeared to show severe bruising to her arms.

The trial is scheduled to continue Wednesday in Judge Richard Skelton’s courtroom.