Terrence Chip Ogle found guilty in 2020 killing of West Valley toddler; juror says medical report was crucial | Crime & Courts

A Yakima County Superior Court jury took less than four hours to find Terrence Chip Ogle guilty of murdering his girlfriend's young son.

However, one juror felt that things were not moving as quickly as they appeared to outsiders.

“When we were admitted to deliberation, all but three of the twelve selected knew where they stood,” said Juror Seven, who asked to be identified only by his badge number.

However, Seven said the jury carefully discussed their positions and reviewed the evidence. Although there was no specific piece of evidence that was convincing, the juror said the weight of the medical testimony helped determine that Ogle was guilty of the murder of Alexander “Alec” Lynch.

Ogle was charged with first-degree murder. Prosecutors allege that Ogle attacked Alec and the 15-month-old boy died from his injuries on April 27, 2020.

The jury deliberated for about three hours and 45 minutes before finding Ogle guilty. Sentencing is scheduled for September 26.

Alec's death was the result of a blow to the head that literally shattered his skull and caused massive brain bleeding. Ogle told police at the time that Alec fell off an ottoman while drinking a bottle of milk and hit his head on the floor of the West Valley apartment where Ogle lived with his girlfriend and their three children.

Yakima Assistant State's Attorney Brooke Wright, who served as a specially appointed assistant Yakima County prosecutor, told jurors in her closing argument that the prosecution did not have to prove exactly how or why Ogle attacked Alec. She said the evidence and the jury's common sense would show them that Ogle could have been the only one who did it.

She said the attack likely occurred shortly after Marie Kotler, Alec's mother, left for Sunnyside to pick up her other children, leaving Ogle alone with Alec. Ogle had called her during the drive to tell her that Alec had scratched his nose on a Nerf toy gun in the playpen, but was fine and asleep when Kotler returned.

“She didn't notice anything wrong,” Wright said in her argument. “But she never saw him awake again.”

Seven said he was surprised he was called to the jury because he is a police officer in the Yakima Valley. But he also noted in his juror questionnaire that he would not blindly accept a prosecutor's testimony without evidence to support it beyond a reasonable doubt.

When he learned he was about to face trial for a child murder, Seven said, his experience in the police force and as a soldier in Afghanistan taught him what emotions might arise and he was able to keep them under control.

Seven said Wright built her case slowly, culminating with testimony from Dr. Carole Jenny, who works on the child abuse team at Harborview Medical Center. Jenny described how Alec's injuries had “destroyed” the child and that he had been unable to move or take a bottle, as Ogle had described.

Jenny, Seven recalled, said Alec's injuries were comparable to those of an adult in a car accident who gets thrown through the windshield and hits a tree and – if Ogle is to be believed – then gets up and walks away.

“They did a good job of gradually drawing us into something horrific and then letting it fade away,” Seven said.

Dr. Micheline Lubin of the King County Coroner's Office walked jurors step-by-step through Alec's autopsy, using graphic photographs that brought at least one juror to tears.

Seven said the image of the skull fracture shows the force with which Alec was hit. He said it was difficult to watch, especially because this was a child who should have had his whole life ahead of him.

“What struck me most was (Lubin's) statement that the bruising (on Alec's face and head) happened all at once,” Seven said, contradicting Ogle's claim that the bruising on Alec's face was from separate accidents over the course of several days.

He said there was never any doubt among the jury about the medical evidence.

Seven said there was other evidence supporting Ogle's guilt, one of which was spilled milk on the living room floor. The spilled milk was a round puddle with a continuous rim on the floor, which Seven said was inconsistent with spilled milk from a thrown or dropped bottle, as Ogle described it.

In the video of Ogle's interview with YPD Detective Mike Durbin, Seven said that although Ogle sounded like he was crying when he saw a photo of Alec in the hospital, he never reached for a tissue to wipe away his tears.

“I'm not a scientist or a biologist, but an eye cannot cry when it's dry,” said Seven. “That was very important to us in our considerations.”

Seven said the defense's claim that Alec's mother, Marie Kotler, could have hurt him was not valid because Ogle, when questioned by Durbin, said she could not have done anything to hurt the child.

Seven said he appreciated the fact that defense attorneys Charles Dold and Wright treated each other respectfully and professionally when they disagreed.

He also praised the chairman of the jury, who ensured that the views of each juror were heard, that doubters were allowed to express their concerns and that these were addressed.

“We asked (the undecided jurors) four times and told them we have time, they have time and they have to live with their decision,” Seven said. “This is another person's life. You have to live with your decision.”

When Dold and Wright met with the jury after the trial, Seven said one of the jurors asked Dold to tell Ogle he wished him luck in his life when he got out of prison.

During the trial, Naught ruled in the absence of the jury that the state could introduce Kotler's heart rate data from her Apple Watch as evidence that she was asleep when Ogle said Alec fell. But Wright, who said she had to weigh whether to call Kotler back to the stand after her initial testimony, did not introduce the evidence.

When Naught told the jury about the watch evidence after the trial, Seven said it made a difference.

“If the watch stuff had been submitted, we would have finished even sooner,” Seven said.

Seven said serving as a jury was an experience he would not forget.

“Seeing something like that, even in my previous jobs, never becomes normal,” he said. “In my opinion, it really makes you sit back and forget about the hustle and bustle of the social media world we live in and appreciate life a lot more.”