Adrienne Pavelka told police and a hospital worker that Trout swung her daughter’s head into a wall four days before Pavelka carried the child, deceased, into MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena on July 22, according to testimony in Alcona County’s 81st District Court on Wednesday.

Pavelka and Trout allegedly kept the fatally injured child in Trout’s home in Glennie, neither seeking medical help, until the child died.

Both defendants appeared in court on Wednesday.

Judge Laura Frawley said the prosecution had presented enough evidence to continue Trout toward trial on one count of first-degree child abuse and one count of felony murder.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Judge Laura Frawley, seated, consults with, from left, standing, Alcona County Prosecutor Tom Weichel and attorneys Bill Pfeifer and Matt Wojda before a hearing in the 81st District Court in Harrisville on Wednesday.

Frawley bound Pavelka over on two counts of first-degree child abuse — for failing to protect a child from known harm and failing to seek medical attention — and one count of felony murder.

“This child was basically tortured. This was brutal,” said Frawley, listing the numerous serious injuries visible in photographs admitted as evidence. “It is hard to comprehend how anyone could do that to a 2-year-old child. It’s just almost impossible to understand.”

Before the joint hearing, the court erected temporary walls to separate the defendants, and Frawley issued a stern warning that she would respond swiftly and harshly with any outbursts.

Detective Sgt. Anthony Utt, of the MSP Alpena Post, said Pavelka in police interviews described a week of violence and horror that led to the child’s death.

According to Utt, Pavelka said Trout had been abusing 2-year-old Jayde McDonnell for weeks, punishing her for toilet training mishaps by punching her, duct taping her to the toilet training seat, and making her sleep on the porch with her hands tied behind her back.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Detective Sgt. Anthony Utt, of the Michigan State Police Alpena Post, listens to a question from attorney Matt Wojda at a hearing for Aaron Trout and Adrienne Pavelka in the 81st District Court in Harrisville on Wednesday.

An autopsy report and photographs, admitted as evidence but not shown in court, revealed ligature marks and evidence of long-term restraint in addition to the evidence of the blunt force trauma ruled as the girl’s cause of death, Alcona County Prosecutor Tom Weichel said.

Pavelka and Trout had been dating for several months, and Pavelka and her three daughters had moved into Trout’s home earlier in the summer.

The couple took the other girls, an infant and a 4-year-old, to stay with people they knew downstate, but Pavelka said Trout wouldn’t let Jayde leave because he had given her a black eye he didn’t want discovered, Utt said.

Trout’s alleged abuse turned more violent on the evening of Tuesday, July 18, when police say he swung the child by her ankles into a wall and then threw the child into the air, the resulting impacts leaving the child unconscious and bleeding from the rectum.

At first, the couple thought the child had died, Pavelka told police.

News File Photo Adrienne Pavelka appears in the 81st District Court in Harrisville in this October 2022 News archive photo.

When the child showed signs of life, the mother suggested medical intervention but ultimately did nothing when Trout allegedly refused to seek treatment for the child over the next several days, police said.

The day after the alleged incident, as the child lay on a couch, her mother went to work but told nobody about the child’s injuries.

The following day, Pavelka used a syringe to feed broth to the child, who occasionally went rigid and shook but could not move or speak, Pavelka told police.

When the child stopped moaning and appeared dead the next morning, Trout drove Pavelka, who does not have a driver’s license, to the hospital, allegedly threatening to kill her other daughters and mother if she did not lie about the child’s death.

Amanda Tolen, unit technician at the Alpena hospital’s emergency department, saw Pavelka enter the hospital, carrying something wrapped in a blue blanket, she testified on Wednesday.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Aaron Trout, in orange, enters the courtroom at the Alcona County courthouse for a preliminary examination on Wednesday.

“I said, ‘That’s a kid. Oh my god, that’s a kid,'” she said in court on Wednesday. “Because I saw the little arm.”

Fighting back emotion, Tolen described nurses racing past her, carrying the child, then herself hugging the mother, not knowing what had happened.

Tolen spoke extensively to the mother, gathering details to report to police, including about Trout’s vehicle and the direction he was heading because he had threatened further violence.

The hospital went into lockdown mode for several hours that day, with only employees and those with pre-established appointments allowed inside.

Alpena Community College, learning from police that a man considered dangerous may have been in the area, closed its campus as a precaution.

News Photo by Julie Riddle In a courtroom divided to keep defendants separate, police officials converse during a break in a hearing for Aaron Trout, right, in the 81st District Court in Harrisville on Wednesday.

Police did not notify the public about the incident until after they had arrested Trout at his home in Glennie.

Pavelka told police that Trout had held a gun to her head sometime after the Tuesday incident, threatening to hurt her if she called a doctor and saying he was not going back to jail.

“She was sitting there, and she turned her head and looked at me, and she said, ‘He wouldn’t hurt me,'” Tolen testified. “‘I have to go to work, and people would see the bruises. So he hurt Jayde, instead.'”

According to Tolen, Pavelka described Trout snapping the child like a blanket and beating her head against a wall repeatedly.

He only agreed to take the child to the Alpena hospital — not to the nearer Tawas City hospital, where people knew him — after the child finally died, “because they couldn’t have a body in the house,” Tolen said.

Police arrested Trout at his home just after 1 p.m. on July 22.

At the home, they found duct tape adhesive on the training toilet, rope, and bodily fluids Utt described as blood mixed with mucus on the wall where Pavelka said the child’s head had struck, Utt said.

In the ensuing days, Trout offered police multiple explanations for the child’s death, at first claiming ignorance and then saying the death was a complication from the couple administering acetaminophen after the girl fell off of a deck, according to Detective Sgt. James Lively, third to testify on Wednesday.

Defense attorneys Bill Pfeifer, for Trout, and Matt Wojda, for Pavelka, navigated the complications of a dual-defendant hearing, objecting to testimony allowable for one defendant but not the other.

Over the arguments of Wojda, Frawley agreed with Weichel, who said Pavelka committed child abuse by leaving the girl with someone she knew posed a danger. Frawley bound Pavelka over for that failure and for contributing to the child’s death by not seeking medical help.

Despite Trout’s threats, Pavelka had multiple opportunities to ask for help, including when she went to her work place, within walking distance of a police station, Weichel said.

“She had the ability to protect the child and did not,” Weichel said. “There was opportunity all over the place.”

Pfeifer said witnesses testifying about what Pavelka had said without Trout being able to confront Pavelka, who did not take the stand, put his client at an unfair advantage, but Frawley disagreed.

She sent Trout toward trial on charges of first-degree child abuse and felony murder.

Pavelka and Trout will next appear in court at the end of the month for arraignment in the 23rd Circuit Court.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.

News Photo by Julie Riddle An Alcona County Sheriff’s Office deputy removes restraints from Adrienne Pavelka in Alcona County’s 81st District Court on Wednesday.

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