Obermiller not guilty in death of 2-year-old Adalynn Hoyt

A jury has found Jason Obermiller not guilty of beating 2-year-old Adalynn Hoyt to death last year.

As the verdict was read aloud by Superior Court Judge John Cooney, family members connected to Adalynn and her mother, Lovina Rainey, stormed out of the courtroom. Obermiller, who remains in Spokane County Jail on multiple charges, including a federal drug charge, thanked his attorneys before being handcuffed and led outside.

Prosecuting attorneys Jennifer Zappone and Gayle Ervin were not in court.

Following the verdict, which the jury reached after roughly a day of deliberation, defense attorney Brian Raymon said he hoped detectives would look further into the 2-year-old’s death, citing a timeline which he and his co-counsel Kevin Griffin believed the state got wrong. He said it was more likely that Rainey or the person she was seeing romantically at the time were involved.

“The jury got it right,” he said. “We always felt it was someone who had been up for a couple days and was on drugs.”

Numerous witnesses testified during the trial that Obermiller was the last one seen with Adalynn the night before she was found dead on Sept. 12, 2016, her body cold and rigid. Prosecutors argued that Obermiller killed her late on Sept. 11.

But defense attorneys said the girl likely died around 6 a.m. the next morning, long after Obermiller had left the home and stayed with his friend in north Spokane, which was confirmed by cellphone records.

They corroborated this theory with testimony by Spokane County Medical Examiner John Howard, who testified that Adalynn’s stomach did not contain any pizza, even though multiple witnesses testified that the toddler had eaten sometime around 9 p.m. to midnight. Howard said the half-life of food in a 2-year-old’s stomach is around three hours.

Adalynn was discovered dead in her bed shortly after 1 p.m. on Sept. 12 with a piece of pizza crust in her mouth. Obermiller testified Monday that he threw a piece of pizza crust in the trash after she said she was done eating, before he put her to bed around midnight and left the door open since she was afraid of the dark.

Howard also testified that Adalynn had 64 bruises on her body from her head to her feet. She was struck so hard in the abdomen that her internal organs tore and her lungs were damaged, leaving her unable to breathe or cry out.

During trial, prosecutors argued Obermiller had killed Adalynn out of frustration because of a drug trafficking expedition that Rainey had forced upon him. Prosecuting attorneys Zappone and Ervin said Obermiller killed Adalynn to either get back at Rainey or to escape the house quickly, since gang members were after his 2001 Honda Accord – the only possession of value he owned.

But defense attorneys pointed to testimony by Trevor Powell, who was living down the hallway from Adalynn’s room. Powell testified that he didn’t hear anything the night prosecutors say Adalynn was killed, even though he was apparently listening intently for when Obermiller was leaving because he needed his help in scoring drugs.

After Adalynn was found, Obermiller went into hiding, Ervin said, turning his phone off multiple times and removing the battery, court documents say. He also did not return calls to Rainey or return to the house, Zappone said.

He instead went to North Idaho, prosecutors said, where he was spotted in an empty cabin on Lake Coeur d’Alene by a neighbor and soon after arrested by police. During the trial, Obermiller insisted he was innocent. Adalynn’s mother, Lovina Rainey, said that she had gotten involved in dealing drugs and didn’t remember what she had told detectives investigating her daughter’s death.

Despite the jury’s verdict, Obermiller will not be released from the Spokane County Jail. He is facing federal drug charges and is also being held for possession of stolen property, possession of a controlled substance, seven charges of second-degree burglary and several traffic misdemeanors.