By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com
A Carthage father accused of killing his infant son and a Joplin man charged with manslaughter in a fatal police chase both waived their rights to preliminary hearings Wednesday in Jasper County Circuit Court.
Associate Circuit Judge Richard Copeland ordered Eddie A. Salazar, 29, bound over for trial on a charge of second-degree murder after he waived his hearing. Salazar is accused of causing the death of 8-month-old Eddie Salazar Jr. the night of Feb. 4 while the baby was in his care at their home on Mound Street in Carthage.
An autopsy determined that the baby died of blunt-force trauma to the head. The medical examiner detected a skull fracture and other bone fractures, which investigators have declined to specify. Authorities also have yet to say how the fatal injury was inflicted.
A preliminary hearing might have provided some answers to those questions. But the defendant waived the hearing, most likely leaving such evidentiary matters to be hashed out in the discovery steps leading up to trial.
The judge set March 29 for the father’s first appearance in a trial division of the court.
In another high-profile case, Boyd L. Damet, 26, of Joplin, waived his right to a preliminary hearing on a charge of involuntary manslaughter.
Damet is accused of causing the death of 18-year-old Marcayla Ackerson, of Joplin, in a high-speed police chase Feb. 16 that ended in a crash of a car with a pickup truck and another vehicle west of the city at Seventh Street and Black Cat Road. Ackerson was a passenger in a car driven by Damet, who allegedly was fleeing an officer who tried to pull him over for failing to signal for a lane change.
