Johnathan Walker:Murder trial underway in case of New Jersey father who made son, 6, run on treadmill

Jurors in a New Jersey courtroom this week were shown the disturbing March 2021 video of a father turning up the speed of a treadmill his 6-year-old son was running on,Johnathan Walker and the boy falling off face-first several times.

Less than two weeks later, on April 2, 2021, the boy, Corey Micciolo, was dead. The trial of his father, Christopher Gregor, 31, of Barnegat, N. J., who is charged with murder and child endangerment in the boy's death, began this week in Ocean County Superior Court.

The Ocean County (N.J.) Prosecutor's Office charged Gregor with murder in March 2022 after a nearly year-long investigation into the boy's death. Eight months earlier, Gregor had been charged with endangering the welfare of a child in connection with the treadmill incident, captured March 20, 2021 on surveillance video in the gym of Gregor's apartment complex.

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The case, before state Superior Court Judge Guy P. Ryan, is a high-profile case with the proceedings even being carried by Court TV and being called the "treadmill abuse murder trial." Testimony began in the trial this week and will resume on Tuesday, May 7.

What are the facts in the case against Christopher Gregor?

Gregor brought the limp body of his son to the emergency room at Southern Ocean Medical Center in Stafford, N.J. on April 2, 2021. In about an hour, the child coded twice and died after life-saving measures were unsuccessful.

Gregor had custody of the boy. His mother, Breanna Micciolo, had him when she was 17. She had visitation rights, but had temporarily lost them at one point because of drug problems, Gregor’s defense attorney Mario Gallucci told the jury.

Breanna Micciolo told the jury she had noticed bruises on her child in March 2021 and took Corey to see a child-abuse specialist where he revealed the treadmill incident. An examination by a pediatrician found no pressing health problems except for the bruises. Corey had about a dozen bruises, abrasions or scratches on him in various stages of healing.

What was the cause of Corey Micciolo's death?

In its investigation, the county medical examiner’s office concluded the boy died from blunt force trauma to the chest and abdomen. Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Jamie Schron in her opening statement on Tuesday, April 30, reiterated the finding and said Corey had contusions all over his body, and his heart and liver were lacerated, she said.

But Gallucci told the jury in his opening statement his medical experts will testify that Corey died as a result of sepsis caused by a bout of pneumonia.

What does the prosecution allege happened to Corey?

The prosecution used the surveillance footage to alleged abuse by Gregor.

During her testimony,Breanna Micciolo said she had filed an emergent application in family court for sole custody of Corey. Christine Lento, an assistant Ocean County prosecutor, asked her why she did that.

"I was in fear for Corey's life,'' she responded. One day before Corey’s death, the application was denied.

The night before Corey died, Micciolo took him to the emergency room. Dr. Ye Kyaw Aung, a pediatric emergency-room physician at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, N.J., told the jury the mother wanted to know if the bruises all over Corey's body came from child abuse.

Aung said the boy seemed scared. "He was afraid to answer my questions,'' the physician testified.

Corey was mildly dehydrated, but that could be attributed to not eating or drinking all day, he said. X-rays taken showed no fractures and his chest X-ray revealed his lungs were clear, Aung testified. Aung said he contacted the state's Division of Child Protection and Permanency and let the boy go home with his mother.

Micciolo testified that when she dropped Corey off at his father’s apartment that next morning, Corey was fine. Eight hours later, he was dead.

What does the defense say?

Gallucci has attempted to paint Breanna Micciolo as a less than ideal parent herself. Gallucci told the jury Micciolo had signed her son out of Community Medical Center in Toms River, N.J., at some point before he died, against medical advice, even though she was told Corey might have sepsis as a result of complications from pneumonia.

Gallucci told the jury when they saw the surveillance video, "you’re going to be mortified." However, he said, while the treadmill incident and playing football caused Corey’s bruises, the treadmill incident did not cause the child’s death.

While Gallucci questioned Micciolo, she acknowledged a past drug addiction and said she had sought treatment and her visitation rights were restored. She also admitted that on the same day her son died, but before she learned of his death, she had texted a boyfriend, asking him to get her methamphetamines.

Micciolo said she never did do drugs that day.  "But you wanted to?'' Gallucci asked. 

"Oh, yeah, I was very upset about my son being abused,'' she responded.

Micciolo also admitted under cross-examination that after her son died, she and some friends threw rocks, dead fish, bones and eggs at Gregor’s parent’s house.

Jurors were played a phone call Gregor made the morning of the day Corey died to the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency in which he told employee Richard Cicerone the child's mother had made false child-abuse allegations against him more than a dozen times in the past. He said he was worried that caseworkers would take the latest allegations seriously.

When Corey came home, Gregor told Cicerone, "one of the first two things he said was, 'I don't want to go with my mom anymore, she's going to try to take me away from you,' and he also said, 'Mom told me to lie,  and I had to.'"

Gregor said that day about 4 p.m. the same day, after Corey started vomiting and went limp, Gregor took him to the hospital, where he died shortly after 5 p.m. 

If convicted, how many years could Gregor spend in state prison?

If Gregor is convicted of murder, he would face a minimum sentence of 30 years without parole and up to a maximum sentence of life in prison. If convicted of child endangerment, the sentence would be expected to be about 10 years behind bars.

Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads: @mikesnider & mikegsnider.

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