A jury has been seated and opening statements for both side have been made in the case of a Carthage father who is accused killing his son in February of 2010.
After two requests for a change of venue and requests that the jury be sequestered, the jury was seated this afternoon. Two jury pools were called for the trial, one for the morning consisted of approximately 62 jurors. The afternoon pool had 63; however those jurors were dismissed after a jury was successfully seated from the morning pool, according to Jasper County circuit clerk Linda Williams.
Prosecutors say Eddie Salazar Sr. lied when he first told authorities that masked men broke into his house on Mound Street and kidnapped his son eight-month-old son, Eddie Jr., while the baby's mother was at work.
Salazar's claims prompted a statewide Amber alert for the baby, and after two days of searching for the infant his body was found wedged near a tree in the Spring River.
Jasper County prosecutor Dean Dankleson maintains Salazar lied because he beat his son to death and tossed his body in the river in an attempt to cover up the crime while the infant's mother was at work.
Testimony is scheduled to get underway tomorrow morning.
If Salazar is convicted of second-degree murder he faces from 10 to 30 (life) years in prison.
UPDATE 03-15-12:
Prosecutors called law enforcers and the grandmother of the baby, who said he was in good health when he left her care earlier in the day he went missing.
Defense attorney's for Salazar rested their case without calling a single witness and after three hours of deliberations jurors returned a guilty verdict.
Eddie Salazar Sr. is scheduled to be sentenced next month in Jasper County.
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