Witnesses testify in murder trial of Visalia man accused of beating girlfriend's 3-year-old to death

VISALIA, Calif. (KFSN) -- Trevor Bishop, 34, is accused of killing his then girlfriend's three-year-old son Jimmy Horton. The boy's mother, 33-year-old Desie Horton, is also charged with child abuse for failing to protect her son.

The trial officially started last Thursday, but Monday was the first full day of witness testimony. Jurors heard from the defendant's ex-girlfriend, the victim's grandparents, and a few police officers assigned to the case.

It's been more than four years, but Visalia Police Sgt. Daniel Ford still remembers the day clearly when his superiors sent him to Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno.

There, he took numerous pictures of three-year-old Jimmy. He says he saw several injuries on multiple parts of the boy's body - bruising below his eye, on his hand, leg, and around his genital area.

"We had to be very careful, he had just gone through surgery, so we had nursing staff there with us to make sure that no injuries were going to come as a result of having to move him," Ford explained.

Jimmy was first brought to Kaweah Delta's Urgent Care Clinic before an ambulance took him to the main hospital down the street.

He was unresponsive, and his condition was life-threatening.

Bishop allegedly told medical professionals, investigators, and family members that the boy had fallen in the bathtub earlier in the day.

Jimmy eventually died from his head injuries about a year later.

"If he didn't like someone and they looked at him wrong, he was agitated," Bishop's ex-girlfriend Cherilynn O'Callaghan said.

"Okay, what would it take for him to pick a fight with someone that he doesn't even know," the prosecutor asked.

"Nothing, someone could look at him wrong."

She said her brief relationship with Bishop was horrible because he was verbally and physically abusive, testifying that he even pointed a shotgun at her when she refused to have sex with him once.

"He said that if I wasn't going to have sex with him, then neither one of us needed to be alive," she said.

Meanwhile, Desie Horton's parents, the grandparents of Jimmy, testified that from what they saw, Bishop was good to Desie's two children and saw no signs of abuse.

Bishop is charged with murder and assault on a child causing death, and faces 25 years to life in prison.

This trial is expected to go through sometime next week. Desie Horton will be back in court on June first for a trial confirmation hearing.