Animals could have caused some of the most significant damage to Dylan Redwine’s skull, an expert witness testified in the murder trial of the boy’s father Friday.

The first defense witness on the stand Bruce Anderson helped bolster the contention by attorney’s for Mark Redwine that the Monument 13-year-old was actually killed by wildlife on a La Plata County trail. 

An Arizona-based forensic anthropologist, Anderson told jurors that indentations on Dylan’s skull, which prosecution witnesses attributed to an attack by his father, could have been caused by animal teeth or claws.

Previous experts who testified in the case said the skull showed evidence of damage caused by a sharp tool, like a knife. Anderson countered that animal teeth can be sharper than a dull knife. 

“A tooth is as likely as anything else,” he said.   

Redwine’s lawyers have pointed to wildlife activity as playing a key role in Dylan Redwine’s death. Dylan disappeared in 2012. His father, Mark, is charged with second-degree murder.

Anderson examined Dylan Redwine’s bones, including a piece of his skull, in 2019, four years after the skull was discovered. 

Animal activity could also help explain the dispersal of some of Dylan’s remains, Anderson contended. A coyote could have carried Dylan’s skull away from the rest of his body, which could explain why it was found on the opposite side of a small mountain ridge from the rest of his remains. 

Investigators found the skull two years after they initially located some of Dylan’s remains, which also increased the likelihood of animal involvement, Anderson said. “The longer a body lays out there the more likely the head or cranium won’t be found with the other remains,” Anderson said.  

Anderson also cast doubt on the timing of some of Dylan’s injuries. Though the two experts who testified as part of the prosecution’s case said skull fractures were inflicted around the time Dylan died, Anderson said they could have happened weeks after Dylan died. 

Like those two experts, Anderson said he could not determine how Redwine was killed.

Contact the writer: evan.ochsner@gazettedev.gazette.com