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Murder trial begins in 2004 death of Fremont foster child

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By Ben Aguirre Jr.

Oakland Tribune

HAYWARD — The attorney representing a Fremont foster father charged with killing 2-year-old Dylan James George in 2004 told jurors Monday that the boy died from a medical condition, not from injuries caused by her client.

"Dylan George died from a stroke," defense attorney Barbara Thomas said during her opening statement Monday in the murder trial of 45-year-old Terry Howard Corder.

Thomas said that Corder was innocent that the defendant's wife, Sherrie Corder — who will testify against her husband — has lied to police and prosecutors in order to save herself.

Terry and Sherrie Corder, also 45, both were arrested and charged in October 2004 after a pathologist ruled that Dylan — who had been in the couple's care for less than three weeks — died from blunt trauma to the head.

One of the Corders' young daughters testified at the preliminary hearing in 2005 that her father beat Dylan because he refused to eat.

Terry Corder since has been ordered to stand trial for murder and assault on a child causing death. Sherrie Corder accepted a plea agreement in 2006 in exchange for her testimony. The foster mother pleaded guilty to a charge of child endangerment, and will be sentenced to four or six years in state prison at the end of Terry Corder's trial.

Sherrie Corder is expected to testify Wednesday, Deputy District Attorney Elgin Lowe said.

Lowe, in his opening remarks to the six-man, six-woman jury at the Hayward Hall of Justice, said he would use the testimony of Sherrie Corder and two of her daughters to prove that Terry Corder assaulted Dylan in the couple's home on Lahana Way in Fremont.

Sherrie Corder is expected to testify that she initially lied about the facts of the case — at the direction of her husband — and that she along with two of her daughters witnessed the assault attributed to Dylan's death, Lowe told jurors.

The prosecutor then called his first set of witnesses, which included Dylan's biological mother, Monica Mireles.

During questioning from Lowe and Thomas, Mireles testified that Dylan was placed in the Corders' care by Child Protective Services after her 4-month-old son died of sudden infant death syndrome. She also said that CPS became involved with her family because she and Dylan's father had substance abuse problems.

2009 Aug 24