E. Ind. couple on trial for infant son's death

RICHMOND, Ind. (AP) — The murder trial of an eastern Indiana couple accused of starving their infant son to death last year began with prosecutors playing the mother's 911 call.

Amy Hockett and Joseph L. Pierson's trial on murder and neglect charges in their son's February 2012 death began Tuesday in Wayne County Superior Court in Richmond. Hockett and Pierson have pleaded not guilty.

After opening statements, prosecutors played the 911 call Hockett made in which she said her 3-month-old son Khaiden Hockett had just stopped breathing.

But the Palladium-Item reports that paramedics and emergency medical technicians testified Tuesday that the infant's body was already in an advancing stage of rigor mortis when they arrived at the couple's Richmond home.

A pathologist ruled that the child died from dehydration because of starvation.