Stephen Hood, grandfather to 4-year-old Kendall Chick, testified April 3 in the trial of Shawna Gatto. Gatto Hood's fiancee, is charged with murder in Chick's death in 2017.

Before allowing the testimony, Justice William Stokes informed Hood of his right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment. Stokes brought an attorney to advise Hood if he chose. Hood said that he felt he didn’t need to talk to the lawyer.

“I don’t know what you might be charged with,” Stokes said. “Perhaps child endangerment. Perhaps trafficking. But you need to know that things might come up in your testimony that might possibly lead to charges. If at any time you don’t wish to answer a question, you can invoke your Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer.”

Hood said he had not heard from his son, Kendall Chick’s father, for some time, but spoke to Shawna Gatto on the phone and visiting her in jail nearly every day.

He said they had spoken during the trial and had spoken about the case. “She was upset by the pictures, and things that were said,” Hood said. “I tried to console her.”

A phone call on Dec. 19, 2017, taped by Two Bridges Regional Jail, was entered into evidence and played in court. In it, Hood said, “We’re supposed to be Christmas shopping. I thought we were a happy family with happy children.”

He pleaded with Gatto to tell him what had happened to Chick. “I want to know what killed my little girl,” he said. “I guess I’m going to have to wait until the trial to figure that out. I’m scared and worried for you, Shawna.”

He had been speaking to detectives, and they had informed him the case against Gatto was pretty solid, he said. “If there was any abuse going on in this house...”

“Is that what you think,” she responded.

“You’ve got us in an (expletive) situation, Shawna,” he replied. “I want to know what happened, and if you keep saying ‘I don’t know’ you’re going to do life. In Maine, life means life. Life until you die.”

Gatto kept insisting she didn’t kill Chick, and didn’t know why Chick died. She insisted he listen to and trust her, not the police or the state.

“It looks like they have you dead to rights,” he said. “There is no way with one hand I could have split her pancreas. You’re saying nothing happened. Something (expletive) happened. She bled internally. She was abused for months and months, they said. It’s textbook child abuse.”

Gatto said she needed his support and needed him to believe her, and said she loved him.

“I love you with all my heart,” Hood said. “I loved you the day before Kendall died, I loved you the day after she died. But you have got to start thinking about what happened.”

She accused him of starting to question her. “I did nothing, Steve,” she said. “You’ve got to stop talking to the police. Nothing good can come from talking to the police.”

He testified that after he got home from work in the afternoon, he heard Gatto talking to Kendall in the bathroom, telling her she had to cooperate, but she had motioned for him not to go in to her, saying she was in time out for messing her pants. He said he thought he had heard Kendall’s voice when he called out that he was going to the hardware store, but on the stand, couldn’t be sure.

On the jail phone call, Gatto had insisted several times that Hood had heard Chick's voice.

Assistant Attorney General John Alsop said Hood wanted to think he heard her voice because he wanted to believe she was still alive at that point.

Even after Hood understood Chick was in serious trouble, it took them more time to call the EMTs because they were afraid of what the medical technicians would think when they saw Chick's bruising. The couple fought over the way to perform CPR, moved the child twice, and finally called 9-1-1. Gatto also called her mother and one of her sons; they arrived before the ambulance.

After Chick was taken away, Hood got in his truck and drove to the hospital, where he remained for much of the night.

He expressed frustration with Chick's many injuries. According to Hood’s testimony, he was never present when the more serious injuries occurred. He had received information from Gatto after the fact.

He acknowledged that he had also not taken Kendall to see a doctor for treatment for her injuries, but had brought her with him when he went to a substance use counselor at Martin’s Point. Both he and Gatto were being treated for opioid addiction. He said that because they had a child with multiple injuries, taking her out was very uncomfortable.

Alsop asked Hood if he had ever asked Kendall if Gatto had injured her. He said he had, a few weeks before her death. “I was looking at Kendall and wanted to know and believe that it wasn’t an adult who did this to her,” he said. Alsop did not ask what Kendall said, but asked if Hood accepted what she had told him. He replied, “Yes.”

On Dec. 28, in another jail call, Gatto learned Hood had an appointment with Det. Scott Birmingham, and again reiterated that he should not talk to the police, telling him that her lawyer said the time of Kendall’s fatal injury was 6 a.m., just as Hood would have been leaving for work. Given the range provided by the medical examiner, that time was in the outer part of the range, and not the likely time of the injury, but Hood did not have access to that information then.

Alsop asked Hood if he still loved Gatto. “Yes,” he said.

“You’re in kind of a tough spot, aren’t you, Steve?”

The defense will start its cross-examination on Friday morning. There will be no court on Thursday. The trial is expected to extend into next week.

Wednesday morning, blood stain experts and lab analysts discussed their findings, mostly that of the blood stains at the home; most belonged to Chick, with only one stain, in the dining room wainscotting matching Hood’s DNA profile.

Also testifying was Bonnie Lane, who met the family at Family Dollar where she worked as a cashier. She described some of Kendall’s injuries through the summer and fall of 2017, and said she had suggested to Gatto that she contact the Department of Health and Human Services, possibly to obtain some financial assistance as a kinship foster family. Lane said she called DHHS, but because she didn’t know the family’s last name, she was not able to accurately report what she suspected to be abuse.