Prosecutors showed a cage where they believe foster child Rilya Wilson was kept in court on Wednesday, on the third day of caretaker Geralyn Graham's trial.
The cage was submitted as evidence.
Earlier, a prosecution witness testified that she saw Rilya with scars on her arms and head before she disappeared.
“There were scrapes on her arms. There was a gash on her head, forehead area,” family friend Laquica Tuff said of Rilya, who vanished without a trace more than a decade ago.
Graham is on trial for first-degree murder, kidnapping and child abuse. The 66-year-old woman faces life in prison if convicted.
The judge refused to grant a mistrial on Tuesday.
Tuff was a teenager when she says she saw Rilya with the injuries. When she asked Graham about them, “She said that Rilya was clumsy and she always was falling and running into things – she was a clumsy little girl,” Tuff testified.
Prosecutors say Graham killed Rilya, a 4-year-old who was her foster child at the time. The case is notorious in part because the Department of Children and Families didn't realize the girl was missing for more than one year.
Tuff and her mother used to visit Graham and Wilson. The two families were friendly and would occasionally gather at Graham's house.
On another occasion, around Christmas in 2000, Tuff and her mother visited Graham’s house again.
There was no sign of Rilya, however. Tuff said that Graham told her that the girl “was on these series of trips to Disney World and New York” with a friend of hers.
