A 13-year-old boy allegedly killed by his Colorado father after finding his twisted fetish photos did not want to visit his depraved dad during a court-ordered Thanksgiving trip, friends testified.
The first day of testimony Tuesday in the trial of Mark Redwine — charged with second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in the 2012 death of his 13-year-old son Dylan — included accounts from the boy’s friends who said he planned to get out of his father’s house as soon as possible, the Denver Post reported.
“I remember like it was yesterday,” said Joseph Ceballos, who spent the night with Dylan at a sleepover in Colorado Springs before the boy’s mother took him to an airport to visit Redwine on Nov. 18, 2012. “He really didn’t want to go. I could see fear inside his eyes.”
One day later, as Dylan was reported missing from his father’s Vallecito home, Ceballos said he feared the worst.
“I was in tears,” Ceballos testified. “I had a sick feeling in my stomach and I just completely broke down.”
Prosecutors said during opening statements Monday that Redwine, 59, was sent into a “violent rage” when Dylan found “compromising” photos of him eating feces from a diaper while wearing women’s underwear and may have mentioned or shown him the photos the night he was killed.
Prosecutor Michael Dougherty didn’t push Ceballos on why Dylan didn’t want to visit Redwine, but alluded to a strained and potentially abusive relationship between the pair during an exchange while jurors weren’t in the courtroom, the Denver Post reported.
Dylan wanted to spend his first night at his father’s house at a friend’s home, but Redwine told him he couldn’t go, text message show. The teen instead made plans to meet friend Ryan Nava the following morning, but he never showed up.
“Dude, you dad is looking for you,” Nava, 22, reportedly texted Dylan on Nov. 19, 2012. “Are you all right dude?”
Prosecutors allege Dylan was killed in Redwine’s home the previous night, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported.
Dylan, who grew up in southwestern Colorado, had moved with his mother to Colorado Springs while in junior high, the newspaper reported. He was set to move again to Monument, former girlfriend Cristen Baird testified Tuesday.
The court-ordered visit to his father’s home came as Dylan was trying to determine his next moves, including whether to break up with Baird, she told jurors.
Attorneys for Redwine, meanwhile, worked to establish their claim that Dylan ran away from his father’s home, saying the teen had previously hitchhiked and sometimes “walked away” from his problems, the Denver Post reported.
Testimony in the trial, which is expected to last up to five weeks, is set to resume Wednesday. Redwine, who was charged in 2017 and previously denied involvement in his son’s death, faces up to 48 years in prison if convicted.