Knoxville man faces trial in boy's vicious beating death
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A Knoxville woman who discovered her 11-year-old son beaten to death in their home tended to the child and performed CPR in the nearly two hours that passed before she called 911, a Pittsburgh homicide detective testified Friday.
The woman's boyfriend, Anthony Bush, 29, told Detective Tim Rush that he encouraged her to tell dispatchers that her son, Donovan McKee, had fallen out of a window.
Cynthia McKee refused to lie, and Mr. Bush would later describe for detectives the deadly beating that unfolded over the course of nine hours inside the family's home on Knox Avenue while Ms. McKee was at work.
"When he walked into the interview room, the first thing Mr. Bush said was he was sorry, and he was a monster," Detective Rush told District Judge Beth Mills, who on Friday ordered Mr. Bush to stand trial on charges of homicide and child endangerment in the Feb. 12 slaying. The detective recalled Mr. Bush's confession during a short preliminary hearing, describing the suspect as both intermittently tearful and "matter-of-fact."
Mr. Bush, who appeared before the judge in red jail scrubs, shook his head and appeared to cry as the detective spoke.
Mr. Bush said he knew as soon as he "woke up angry" that "Donovan was going to get beat" for playing a computer game instead of doing his homework the night before, Detective Rush said.
"He said he normally beat Donovan with a two-inch black leather belt, but because he woke up angry, he was going to beat him with a stick," the detective testified. The assault intensified throughout the day.
When Mr. Bush became displeased with the boy's vacuuming, he started beating him with "nunchuck-style sticks." When the sticks broke, he said, he made Donovan clean up the pieces before continuing the beating.
As the night wore on, Mr. Bush called Ms. McKee to ask her where she kept the needle and thread. He used them to stitch up a wound on Donovan's arm as the boy screamed and then apologized for screaming, Detective Rush said.
Ms. McKee came to the hearing but abruptly left after prosecutors warned her of the grisly testimony she would hear.
"We didn't want to put her through more than she's already gone through," said Deputy District Attorney Mark V. Tranquilli. Police initially said they had questions about what transpired in the time between when Ms. McKee returned home and when she called 911. After finding old wounds on Donovan's body, police had said they would consider filing charges against her, though that had not happened as of Friday night.
Ms. McKee's sister left the courtroom in tears. She has custody of Donovan's 5-year-old brother, Vincere, who witnessed his brother's beating.
The district attorney's office has until March 28 to decide whether it will pursue the death penalty against Mr. Bush.
His defense attorney, Lisa Middleman, said the state's resources would be better spent on finding programs to help at-risk children than they would on "seeking vengeance on a living human being."
First Published February 25, 2012 12:00 am
