WISCASSET — More than a dozen Lincoln County jurors were asked Friday to look at a picture of a 3-year-old girl in a pink shirt and a plastic crown, smiling up at the camera.

Over the next week, they will have to decide whether a 30-year-old man who was dating her mother is responsible for her death.

A photo of Makinzlee Handrahan presented during opening arguments in the trial of Tyler Witham-Jordan in Wiscasset, who is accused of killing her in December 2022. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald

Makinzlee Handrahan was found dead in her bed in Edgecomb on Christmas morning in 2022.

Her mother, Faith Lewis, 32, was preparing the household for Christmas while battling the flu, prosecutors said Friday. Makinzlee was sick, too. The girl had been in bed most of Christmas Eve, never getting up to eat or use the restroom.

At some point that night, police suspect, Lewis’ boyfriend at the time, Tyler Witham-Jordan, beat her with a hairbrush, dragged her into the bedroom and left her in the bottom bunk, where she slept in the room with his own 9-year-old daughter.

The state said they found his hat wedged between Makinzlee’s pillows, next to where her body was found, and blood stains with both his and Makinzlee’s DNA profiles.

The state has promised the jury will see text messages between the couple, reports from police interviews, DNA evidence tying Witham-Jordan to Makinzlee’s murder and compelling testimony from Lewis.

“Makinzlee was not able to speak for herself,” Assistant Attorney General Lisa Bogue said in opening statements. “But her injuries, and the evidence, leave a trail. And that trail leads directly, and only, to this defendant.”

Witham-Jordan pleaded not guilty to one count of depraved indifference murder in January. He was arrested nearly 10 months after Makinzlee was found dead. In that time, both he and Lewis’ family complained about the “radio silence” surrounding the state’s investigation.

Now at trial almost two years after her death, his trio of defense attorneys aren’t just saying that he’s innocent – they say Lewis killed her daughter.

Tyler Witham-Jordan, center, enters the courtroom in Wiscasset with his defense team for opening arguments on Friday. He is charged with murder in connection with the death of his ex-girlfriend’s daughter, Makinzlee Handrahan. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald

Prosecutors have previously said they consider Lewis a victim, not a suspect. She is scheduled to testify next week and was not in court Friday.

The trial will be grueling, lawyers on both side admitted. They spent almost the entire week selecting a jury, which was briefed multiple times before Friday that the case would be uncomfortable. Jurors will see images from Makinzlee’s autopsy, in which she is covered in bruises and some blood, a large clump of her hair missing.

A few of those images were shown Friday afternoon. Bogue told the jury it was necessary to prove the injuries were serious.

Prosecutors plan to hone in on Witham-Jordan’s drug use, because they believe the beating happened when he was suffering opioid withdrawal. The day before Makinzlee was found, Bogue said, Witham-Jordan had bought drugs from someone only to discover later that day that they were fake.

Multiple paramedics who were called to help Makinzlee testified Friday about Witham-Jordan angrily shouting “what the (expletive)” while standing over Makinzlee’s body.

“It was very loud. It seemed to me like he was angry,” recalled Nicholas Bryant, one of the first paramedics on scene.

Another EMT, Curtis Bramhall, said that he heard Witham-Jordan say “I’m done” as paramedics scooped Makinzlee up and brought her to the ambulance outside. They testified that they felt it would be safer to treat her there than inside, in part because of Witham-Jordan’s demeanor.

“He’s short-fused. He’s agitated. He’s grouchy,” said Bogue. “That’s the evidence you’re going to see and hear.”

His lawyers suggested their client’s behavior might have been misinterpreted. Defense attorney Paul Corey pointed out that in one paramedic’s report about the day of the incident, they wrote that it seemed Witham-Jordan had been performing CPR.

Assistant Attorney General Lisa Bogue presents her opening argument to the jury in the murder trial against Tyler Witham-Jordan on Friday. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald

The defense has promised a full-fledged attack on Lewis’ character, focused on her mental health and alleged discrepancies in her multiple interviews with police.

James Howaniec, one of the defense lawyers, said jurors won’t hear from “a single witness in this household, this crowded small household” that saw Witham-Jordan kill Makinzlee, including his 9-year-old daughter who slept in the same room.

He said the jury will see several texts from 2:30 that morning, in which Lewis tells Witham-Jordan – who was smoking in their parking lot – that she was worried Makinzlee could be “so sick that she doesn’t wake up,” yet she never walked across the hall to check on her daughter. She also had a baby monitor in Makinzlee’s room, which Howaniec said showed her Makinzlee’s bed the entire night.

“By the end of this trial you will have far more questions about Faith Lewis’ culpability in this murder than you will about Tyler’s,” said Howaniec. “And at that time we will ask you to return a verdict of not guilty.”

Months before she died, Makinzlee’s home was investigated for abuse and neglect by the state Department of Health and Human Services. Daycare workers reported seeing several concerning scratches and bruises on Makinzlee.

Hers is one of several high profile child deaths in recent years that have raised criticism of the state’s system for investigating and responding to child abuse.

Police noted the DHHS investigation in an affidavit that ultimately called for Witham-Jordan’s arrest. It did not come up in the first day of trial.