Mary Susan Arnold cried when she described finding the body of 23-month-old Cyrus Belt on the H-1 freeway on Jan. 17, 2008, under a pedestrian overpass.

“;There was nothing I could do,”; Arnold said, “;I held the baby's hand and it was warm.”;

Arnold was the first person to reach the toddler and one of the first witnesses to testify yesterday in the murder trial of Matthew Higa in Circuit Court. Higa, 25, is facing a mandatory life prison term for allegedly killing the toddler by throwing him off the overpass.

Belt died from multiple blunt force injuries sustained in the nearly 29-foot fall, said Dr. Gayle Suzuki, deputy Honolulu medical examiner. A truck also ran over the boy after he landed on the roadway.

Arnold said she was driving westbound on the freeway when a car and truck in front of her veered to the right. So she did the same and pulled over. When she passed Belt's body, she said, she knew it was a small child.

She said she ran to Belt and, after realizing he was dead, went back to her car to get a blanket to cover the body.

Hansen “;Sonny”; Kiaha was driving the truck two vehicles ahead of Arnold when he said he saw something fall in front of him, nearly hitting his vehicle. At the same time, his passenger blurted, “;Uncle, it's a baby,”; Kiaha said.

He said he thought the object couldn't be a baby; it had to be a doll. Almost immediately, “;I felt a thump,”; Kiaha said. “;Then I heard a loud pop.”;

City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle said in his opening statement the popping sound was Belt's head exploding.

Kiaha said he, too, pulled over and ran toward the boy's body.

He said there was no way he could have avoided running over the toddler.

Craig Hengst, who lived at the time near the mauka end of the Miller Street overpass, testified he saw Higa throw Belt off the overpass.

Higa's lawyer, Randy Oyama, did not make an opening statement yesterday. He has said his client is not guilty of murder because Belt was already dead when he plunged off the overpass.

    Witnesses in Higa trial tell their stories

 

 

Witnesses tell their stories publicly for the first time about the terrible details on baby Cyrus' death.

[ Watch ]

 

Honolulu police officer Darryl Jones testified that about 25 minutes earlier he found Belt nearby, standing in the middle of Iolani Avenue. Jones was off duty at the time, driving his subsidized vehicle.

“;I turned on my strobe lights, got out of the vehicle, grabbed the toddler out of the roadway,”; he said.

Jones said he took Belt into his vehicle and called police dispatch. But before an on-duty officer arrived, Jones said, he handed the boy over to a man whom the toddler appeared to know. The man, Shane Mizusawa, presented his identification to Jones and said Belt's mother was his girlfriend.

Less than 24 hours earlier, Jones was at the scene of another tragedy while off duty. He witnessed a man bludgeon a woman in the middle of a Kailua roadway with the butt of a shotgun.

Alapeti Tunoa Jr. is serving a life prison term after pleading guilty to murder last year for killing his former girlfriend, Janel Tupuola.