SANDUSKY - Both sides rested yesterday in the murder trial of Robert Garrett, and visiting Judge Lawrence Grey said he would decide Friday whether the defendant caused the Oct. 29 death of Denise Butler-Joiner by beating her 11 days earlier.

In rebuttal testimony, Lucas County deputy coroner Cynthia Beisser defended her ruling that Ms. Butler-Joiner died of blunt head trauma and said two physicians who treated the Sandusky woman in her final days misdiagnosed her death as resulting from pregnancy-related heart, lung, and brain complications. “She had no other anatomic reason for her death other than the brain injury,'' Dr. Beisser testified.

The Lucas County deputy coroner said Ms. Butler-Joiner died from brain swelling caused by internal bleeding from the injury. She rejected the physicians' belief that clotting in a large vein between the two sides of the brain resulted from postpartum complications.

If that were the case, Dr. Beisser said, she would have found bleeding on both sides of the brain, rather than on the left side only.

The final prosecution witness, Cuyahoga County deputy coroner Marta Steinberg, supported Dr. Beisser's findings. “It is not uncommon to see internal injuries with nothing outside,'' she said. “That's why we do the autopsy.''

Besides murder, Garrett, 23, is charged with felonious assault and domestic violence in connection with his girlfriend's death. Ms. Butler-Joiner, 32, gave birth to a healthy boy Oct. 19, the day after the alleged assault, and Garrett is charged with attempted felonious assault on the then-unborn child. Garrett did not take the stand in his defense.

Judge Grey rejected a motion by defense attorney George Evans to dismiss the charges for lack of evidence. He also declined to dismiss a charge that Garrett assaulted Ms. Butler-Joiner in November, 2000, and took under advisement a request to throw out a charge that the defendant abducted her in August, 2000.

Two of Ms. Butler-Joiner's children testified last week that Garrett slammed their mother into a wall and a door in her bedroom the night of Oct. 18. Dr. Beisser said she found brain injuries during an autopsy and ruled the death a homicide.

But in testimony last week, two of the physicians who treated Ms. Butler-Joiner said she died of postpartum complications.

Dr. William Bauer, a neurologist at Fisher-Titus Medical Center in Norwalk, told the court that blood clotting in Ms. Butler-Joiner's brain caused her death. Dr. Leo Clark, a neurosurgeon at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo, testified that she had clotting in her brain but died from blood clots in her lungs and an enlarged heart.

Dr. Beisser testified yesterday that she dissected the woman's heart chambers and coronary arteries and found nothing abnormal. “In this case, there was no evidence she had any cardiomyopathy, “ she said. “This heart was, for all intents and purposes, normal. `'

In his closing statement, special prosecutor Dean Holman of Medina County noted the discrepancy between the physicians' explanations for how the death occurred. He also argued that Dr. Beisser, who examined Ms. Butler-Joiner's brain as part of the autopsy, was the best judge of how she died.

“There is no contrary evidence from a pathologist in this case,'' Mr. Holman told Judge Grey. “Dr. Clark and Dr. Bauer did not go to see the brain, and they offer two causes of death. They can't even agree among themselves what the cause of death is, yet they're asking this court to see reasonable doubt.''

The prosecutor argued that Dr. Bauer acknowledged misreading a CAT scan taken Oct. 26 that showed a small area of bleeding in the brain. Dr. Beisser testified last week, and again yesterday, that the bleeding resulted from bruised tissue that broke down in the days after Ms. Butler-Joiner was injured.

Assistant prosecutor Scott Salisbury acknowledged the division of opinion among the doctors who testified but said the evidence clearly favors the prosecution's case.

“Somebody was wrong in this case,'' Mr. Salisbury told the judge. “That's not a question of credibility. That's a question of fact. Judge, I respectfully submit to you, that does not constitute reasonable doubt. ... Your honor, as Dr. Steinberg said this morning, this case is exactly why we have autopsies, to find out if the clinicians are right.''

Mr. Evans, in his closing statement, argued that the prosecution had failed to prove its case.

“Denise Joiner certainly died an untimely death, but it's ... the weight of the evidence that is the problem,'' he told Judge Grey. “We have argued from the beginning one central fact: that Robert didn't do this. All of the charges of the state rest on the contusion theory, and that has not been established beyond a reasonable doubt. ... There was no evidence of her head slamming on anything.''

First Published March 6, 2002, 8:41 a.m.