Oct 7, 2025 By Mike Jones 6 min read

Prosecutors claimed in opening statements Monday that the Smith Township father on trial for allegedly violently shaking his son made “chilling” statements about preparing to do just that in the days before the child’s death, while his defense attorney told jurors that the fatal injuries occurred while the boy was being babysat by his step-grandmother.

The first day of the homicide trial for Joshua George, who could face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder, opened inside the Washington County Courthouse with dueling theories from the prosecution and defense about when and where 6-month-old Oliver George suffered fatal injuries on Dec. 30, 2021, before he died four days later in a Pittsburgh hospital.

“This case is about the chilling words of a father that became actions,” Washington County FIrst Assistant District Attorney Leslie Mylan said in her opening statement.

She was alluding to a conversation George allegedly had with a relative while making repairs to his car in which he relayed a message that he “told Oliver the night before he was going to shake him.” Mylan told the jury that George assaulted Oliver inside the family’s Francis Road home in Smith Township before taking him and two other children to the nearby Colony Road home of his maternal grandparents, where Cheska Rotellini, the step-grandmother who was babysitting the children, noticed the boy was not acting like himself, prompting her to call 911 and seek help.

“Those words became actions,” Mylan said. “This was a violent act against the most vulnerable. … He brought those words to life.”

But George’s defense attorney, Stanley Booker, pinned the blame on Rotellini, claiming the boy only began suffering evidence of his injuries hours after George dropped him off at the house.

“We all say things, things that never come to fruition,” Booker said of George’s comments about shaking Oliver. “This injury happened in the care of Cheska Rotellini.”

Booker said they will present experts showing that the child would’ve exhibited the trauma immediately after arriving at his grandparents’ home rather than the more than three hours when Rotellini called 911 after she noticed something was wrong.

Oliver’s mother, Caitlin Riffle, was the first to testify Monday, and she described how she awoke the morning of Dec. 30, 2021, and fed her son and changed him.

“He looked at me and he smiled,” she said.

Riffle then woke up George, who was sleeping on the couch, and told him to get the children ready to take over to the babysitter as she left for work. Riffle then got a video phone call from Rotellini later in the morning raising concerns about Oliver’s health, noting that he had been fussy and had labored breathing. Riffle said she got another frantic call from Rotellini shortly before noon that Oliver’s arm and ear were discolored before she called 911.

The 911 call Rotellini made was played in court and illustrated how distraught she was about the child’s condition as it deteriorated.

“He hasn’t been breathing right,” Rotellini told the 911 operator. “I don’t know what’s wrong with my grandson. … He’s not been right since he walked in the door.”

In cross-examination, Booker asked about a text conversation Riffle had with her father, Micheal Riffle, about a month earlier in which she raised concerns about Oliver coming home with bruises, although she blamed those injuries on her father’s 2-year-old son. While testifying, Micheal Riffle denied those bruises happened at his house and blamed George for it instead.

Riffle testified that he was awakened shortly after George arrived with the children and he began watching Oliver for about a few minutes while Rotellini ran errands helping Riffle’s mother. He said Oliver was not acting like himself at the time as he sat in a bouncy chair.

“He was fussing,” Riffle said. “He was moaning, like whimpering.”

Riffle went to a physical therapy appointment at 9:15 a.m. and returned around 10:30 a.m. to find Oliver’s health had deteriorated significantly. Rotellini attempted to call Riffle six times in an eight-minute span while he was at his therapy appointment.

“Oliver was limp. His eyes rolled back in his head. It looked like he wasn’t breathing,” Riffle said.

He said Oliver was “inconsolable” as he tried to bounce him on his knee to get the infant to perk back up. Riffle and his son, Hunter, were then asked to buy milk at the local store, but they turned around after driving for only a couple minutes when Rotellini called them in a panic that Oliver was struggling to breathe and she was calling 911.

Rotellini testified that Oliver was “fussy, miserable, moaning” after arriving at her house, but his condition deteriorated over the next few hours before she called 911.

“By then, I was petrified,” she said. “From the moment he was there, nothing was normal.”

During cross-examination, Booker raised questions about Rotellini’s initial comments to investigators – including that Oliver had been fussy in the days before he was injured – along with her recollection of events and why she waited so long to call 911 for help if the infant appeared to be in distress.

He even raised the specter of her parenting history. Booker noted that she once failed to take her 2-year-old child to the hospital for five days in 2015 after receiving a third-degree burn on the hand that eventually needed a skin graft. In a different situation, another child fell down the steps, but she declined to go to the hospital since she did not believe the toddler was injured.

Wearing a black suit and glasses with a cleanly shaved face and neatly trimmed haircut, George sat at the defense table next to his three attorneys and listened to testimony. George, 34, is facing felony charges of homicide, child endangerment and three counts of aggravated assault. He faces the possibility of the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.

The trial before President Judge Valarie Costanzo is scheduled to resume this morning and is expected to continue through at least the end of the week.