SHELBY A light rain fell Monday afternoon as two vans brought a Cleveland County jury to the apartment where 2-year-old Jeremiah Swafford was found with a 6-inch fracture in his head on Feb. 13, 2009.

Waiting outside under an umbrella with his lawyer was Dwight Stacy Justice, 45, charged with first-degree murder and felony child abuse in the beating death of his stepson.

Testimony in the trial began on Jan. 18, and the jury of nine women and three men has seen diagrams and photos of Justice's former apartment. But Monday they traveled about five miles north of Shelby to get a firsthand look inside the brick building on East Zion Church Road.

Cleveland County Assistant District Attorney Bill Young said he had several more witnesses to call before resting his case. Meanwhile, defense attorney Ted Cummings announced that his first witness would be Justice's wife, Kathy Lynn Swafford, 23. She's also charged with first-degree murder and felony child abuse in Jeremiah's death and will be tried in March. Her attorney, Fred Flowers of Shelby, has been sitting in on the Justice trial.

A medical examiner has testified that Jeremiah died on Feb. 14, 2009, from blunt force trauma to the head resulting in brain swelling.

On Monday, Cummings cross-examined prosecution witness John Kiser with the State Bureau of Investigation, who'd testified Friday about two interviews he'd conducted with Justice in 2009. The first was Feb. 13 at Cleveland Regional Medical Center in Shelby and the second was Feb. 14 at Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte.

Cummings reviewed comments Justice made about not knowing anything about Jeremiah's medical history other than what Swafford had told him and multiple incidents of her not taking care of Jeremiah. Justice said Swafford would get mad at the toddler when he didn't cooperate with her and that she called him names and hit him with a belt.

According to Justice, she said things such as "I'm going to give you back to your daddy" and "I'm going to wring your neck."

Justice also talked about Swafford's troubled family life and how daily calls from her mother and grandmother "made her mad."

In both interviews, Justice repeatedly denied he had anything to do with Jeremiah's death or knew anything about what had happened to him.

Cummings asked Kiser if he'd used all his interviewing skills with Justice and given him every opportunity to tell something.

"I did every technique I could think of at the time," Kiser said.

After Kiser, the prosecution called John Michael Rowe with the Verizon Wireless Atlanta office to review records of telephone calls made to and from Justice's apartment on Feb. 13, 2009. The first call at 9:25 a.m. was incoming and went to voice mail; the second, at 9:56 a.m., was answered by someone at the residence; it lasted 75 seconds.

Justice has said in the interview that he slept in front of the television most of the morning of Feb. 13 and was awakened shortly after noon by his wife's screaming: "He's dead. He's dead. My baby's dead."

Crime scene evidence presented on Monday included Spider-Man sheets and pillows taken from Jeremiah's bed in the apartment.

The presentation of evidence continues today at 9:30 a.m.