REGINA – The courtroom was packed Friday as one of the accused in the Goforth murder trial took the stand.
Kevin and Tammy Goforth are facing charges in the death of a four-year-old girl and the alleged abuse of her two-year-old sister, while the children were in their care in August of 2012.
Tammy Goforth spoke clearly and firmly to the jury during the first part of her testimony, but was quite distraught later in the morning.
“Something’s wrong, she’s not answering!” – Tammy Goforth
She testified the girls would eat dinner with everyone in the house. She said when the girls first came to live with them, they would eat too much and too fast, and would throw up at times. She added they started to slow down as time went on.
The accused started to get choked up when she was shown photos of the girl’s injuries. She said she didn’t recognize the mark on the girl’s forehead or bruises on her feet. However, she did say she taped mittens on the girls’ hands to stop them from scratching.
Tammy was also shown the four-year-old’s ankle injuries and said it was caused by the girl wearing runners barefoot. She said she would treat with gauze and medical tape.
The accused also said “no” when asked if she ever slapped the two-year-old’s face and denied knowing where the bruise on the girl’s face came from.
The defence then started to talk about July 31, right before the four-year-old was taken to the hospital with what was described to the court as cardiac arrest by earlier witnesses. Tammy started sobbing and grabbing her face when she described finding the four-year-old laying by the closet in her room, not moving.
“I started screaming at the top of my lungs,” said Tammy.
Tammy said she screamed for her husband and the four-year-old “was trying to move her mouth…it looked like she was trying to breathe.” She added they floored it to the hospital.
The defence asked if Tammy ever intended to hurt the girls or kill the four-year-old. Tammy wept while saying “no, no, no.”
The court also heard Tammy say the Goforths never received any health cards or information for the girls, so they wouldn’t take them to the doctor or the dentist.
Tammy testified she would call Alicia Ward, a child protection worker with the Ministry of Social Services and former witness, but wouldn’t always get a call back.
Crown Cross-Examines Accused
The Crown spent much of the afternoon going back over Tammy’s testimony.
Kim Jones asked how duct tape became attached to the girl’s pajama pants. When the accused denied knowing, he suggested the four-year-old was bound and stuffed behind a dresser the night she was found and taken to hospital.
He also accused Tammy of locking the girls in their room, but she claimed to have only used string on the doorknobs to keep the girls in once so they wouldn’t wander at night.
The Crown grilled the witness about allegedly restraining the girls and questioned why she never took them to see a doctor, ever.
“I suggest ma’am you gave up on those girls and once you gave up on those girls you didn’t care. You were not feeding them and intentionally starving them,” said Jones.
Tammy denied the accusations and claimed the girls were always thin and well fed but became sick in the last two weeks and lost weight.
She reiterated she didn’t bring them to the hospital because she didn’t have their health cards and it cost money, but she thought she could make them better on her own.
READ MORE: Defence calls first witnesses in another tense day for Goforth trial
The girls can’t be identified because of a publication ban.
The co-accused, Kevin Goforth is expected to testify Monday morning which brings the trial into a third week.
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