Trial opens in Bucks murder case
The day after his 2-year-old son died from an overdose of pain pills, Coco Wallace seemed oddly unconcerned, said Keshia Lewis, one of his friends.
The day after his 2-year-old son died from an overdose of pain pills, Coco Wallace seemed oddly unconcerned, said Keshia Lewis, one of his friends.
Wallace picked her up in his mother's car, and they started driving. Along the way, Lewis said, Wallace pulled a tube sock from his pocket. The sock contained a sandwich bag full of pills, and he started throwing them out the car window, Lewis said.
"I said, 'What are you doing?' And he said, 'I'm throwing these out for my son,' " Lewis said. "He had a careless, blank expression that just didn't seem right."
Lewis told that story Wednesday, the first day of Wallace's murder trial before a Bucks County judge. Wallace is accused of murdering his son, Buddy, at their Middletown apartment last year to get back at the boy's mother, who Wallace suspected had been cheating on him, according to court documents.
What remains unclear more than a year later is exactly how Buddy Wallace came to ingest triple the amount of pills that would kill a normal adult.
Lewis testified Wednesday that Wallace was concerned that police would investigate him for the boy's death. But he blamed the death on someone else.
"He said someone gave his kid pills and that's what killed him," Lewis said on the stand. "He just didn't seem concerned. He wasn't really grieving. He was worried about other things."
Under cross-examination from Wallace's defense attorneys, Lewis said that Wallace was crying over the phone on the night of his son's death.
Three other witnesses testified Wednesday morning, including a doctor and a nurse at Lower Bucks Hospital, where Wallace took his son the night he died. They said Wallace never mentioned that Buddy might have ingested pain killers.
A man who shared a cell at the Bucks County prison with Wallace also testified that Wallace admitted killing his son. The men were having a heart-to-heart moment about their children when Wallace started crying, said John O'Brien.
"He kept saying, 'I killed my son. I killed my son. God forgive me. I killed my son,' " said O'Brien, who is awaiting trial on forgery charges.
O'Brien testified that he told police of Wallace's confession because he was trying to "do the right thing." He also admitted that he was desperate to get out of jail.
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