Doctor testifies in murder trial how Lockport woman, child were killed in 2020

A forensic pathologist testified in a murder trial Wednesday that even though a Lockport woman had a vertical cut on her left forearm, her true cause of death in October 2020 was from strangulation.

Dr. Valerie Arangelovich told a Will County jury that despite the cut on the left forearm of Ashtin Eaton, 32, the major arteries and veins in that area were still intact.

“It did not cause her death,” Arangelovich said.

Instead, Arangelovich said Eaton died by strangulation after she observed purplish-red bruising on Eaton’s neck, shoulders and head. Arangelovich said she observed that Eaton’s brain was swollen from a lack of oxygen. She said Eaton’s eyelids also showed signs of petechial hemorrhages.

“Those are commonly seen in strangulation cases,” Arangelovich said.

She said it was “highly likely” that Eaton had struggled when she was strangled to death.

Arangelovich ruled Eaton’s death was a homicide. She also found that Eaton’s 14-month-old daughter, Hazel Bryant, had died in a homicide after seeing physical signs on the child’s face that she was smothered to death.

Arangelovich said she reviewed police reports, scene photographs, toxicological reports and medical records for Eaton and Hazel, and she did not find any other possible cause and manner of death.

Arangelovich’s testimony Wednesday concluded the second day of trial in the case against Anthony Maggio, 30, of Crestwood. He is charged with the Oct. 2, 2020, first-degree murder of Eaton and Hazel.

Hazel was the child of Eaton and Maggio, the latter of whom had two other children with another woman. Prosecutors alleged that Maggio killed Eaton and Hazel after a dispute over child-support payments for Hazel and staged Eaton’s death to look like a suicide.

During Arangelovich’s testimony, she said that when pressure is applied to a person’s neck, it usually takes them 10 to 20 seconds to lose consciousness. If the pressure continues for three to six minutes, a person will experience “irreversible brain death,” she said.

Arangelovich said Eaton was a “very healthy woman” and suggested the strangulation that led to her death would’ve taken a longer time.

She said she did not know whether Eaton was strangled by someone’s hand, a towel, a rope or something else. She said there were no signs of narrow ligature marks on Eaton’s neck.

Arangelovich said she did not know whether the vertical cut on Eaton’s left forearm occurred before or after the strangulation. She said she did not know how Hazel was smothered and whether she died before or after Eaton.

But Arangelovich said it was possible that Hazel was smothered when someone pressed her head down into her mother’s bed. Hazel was seen by her older sister on the morning of Oct. 2, 2020, facedown in the bed. Hazel’s grandmother said the child was tucked into the blankets on the bed.

Former Will County Deputy Coroner Kelly Robertson testified that when she responded to the scene of the deaths Oct. 2, 2020, she decided to seal Eaton’s hands with paper bags.

Robertson said she did that to preserve evidence because she saw injuries that she believed could not have been caused by Eaton herself. She also saw Eaton’s neck had bruises and her eyelids had petechial hemorrhages.