Father pleads not guilty in baby's death
The accused father, John Vincent Frazier, showed very little emotion at the hearing in Whatcom County Superior Court as he heard the charge and entered his plea.
 Jon "Cecil" Anthony Frazier |
"It's really rocked the community," said one woman, Rachel Kennedy. "Everybody has felt the loss of this child's life."
"We want to remember the baby," she added.
Along the sidewalk outside the courthouse, Kennedy and other community members held a vigil for the 2-month-old infant, Jon Anthony Frazier - or "Cecil," as he was called.
The baby's photo was there, along with ribbons and candles placed in his memory.
Baby Cecil's small, broken body was found in a wooded area near Ferndale last month.
According to police, the boys's father first claimed he woke up to find the boy was missing from their trailer.
Then, a few days later, prosecutors say, his story changed. Frazier allegedly told police he woke up with the boy suffocated underneath him.
But after an autopsy, prosecutors said Frazier's story didn't add up, because the baby's injuries didn't match the account Frazier gave of the circumstances surrounding the boy's death.
Authorities believe the baby was swung by his leg and hit in the head.
The gory details are too much for some community members to handle. So rather than looking back, they said they're looking forward.
"We don't want to concentrate on how this happened. We want to concentrate on why it happened and reach out to the community so maybe we can save one child's life," Kennedy said.
Vigil organizers handed out flyers about child abuse statistics to support groups and reaching out for help. They're trying to do anything to prevent this from happening again.
"We wanted to be able to get the word out and make sure this doesn't happen to any other child again," said organizer Stefanie Smith. "With all the resources that are here, there's no excuse for a child's life to end in death."