Oct 8, 2025 By Mike Jones 5 min read

The night before Oliver George suffered fatal injuries from an assault in December 2021, a family friend of the man on trial this week in the baby’s death said the Smith Township father allegedly told him he was going to “shake” his son after a week of cranky behavior.

Michael Welch testified Tuesday on the second day of Joshua George’s homicide trial that he and George were replacing the transmission of a car when the defendant made an unprovoked comment about his 6-month-old son Oliver not sleeping through the night.

“He told me the night before he looked at Oliver and told him he was going to shake him,” Welch said.

“How did you react?” Washington County First Assistant District Attorney Leslie Mylan responded.

“I was taken aback. I said, ‘Josh, what the hell?'” Welch recalled telling George. “Josh was tired, too. Stressed out.”

The following day on Dec. 30, 2021, Oliver was hospitalized following a violent assault that caused a fracture to the back of his skull and various other injuries. He died four days later at a Pittsburgh hospital, and George was charged with homicide and could face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder during the jury trial this week before President Judge Valarie Costanzo in the Washington County Courthouse.

In cross-examination, George’s defense attorney, Stanley Booker, questioned Welch’s motivation for recalling such a story and asked if he “concocted it” when other family members suspected George was responsible for the infant’s injuries. Welch is the uncle to Caitlin Riffle, who is Oliver’s mother, and has other close connections to that side of the family. However, he testified that he contacted police two days after Oliver was injured to let them know what he allegedly heard George tell him.

Just before Welch testified, Booker cross-examined Cheska Rotenelli, who was Oliver’s step-grandmother and was babysitting the child for several hours when he began exhibiting signs of trauma, prompting her to call 911 for help. Investigators allege George assaulted Oliver at his Francis Road home in Smith Township and then took the infant and two other children to Oliver’s maternal grandparents’ nearby house on Colony Road to be cared for while the parents worked.

But Booker practically put Rotenelli on trial instead, questioning her for nearly an hour about her history of parenting her own children, along with statements she made to police about the time leading up to Oliver being in distress.

During a police interview two months after Oliver’s death, investigators asked Rotenelli what she thought should happen to the person who harmed him, prompting her to respond that the person should have a “mental health evaluation.” When further pressed by investigators, she told them she didn’t want to be “the death of someone.”

“What did you mean you didn’t want to be the death of someone?” Booker asked.

“It’s not my call,” Rotenelli testified.

“Or did you say that because you did not want someone going to jail for what you did?” Booker asked.

“No,” Rotenelli said.

Booker also questioned whether an apparent miscarriage of twins shortly before Oliver’s birth in early July 2021 led to animosity about the situation.

“Were you jealous of what Oliver and Caitlin had?” Booker said.

“I was not,” she said. “I loved that baby.”

After Booker played numerous clips from Rotenelli’s police interview in early 2022, Mylan asked her if she thought the length of the time since she spoke to police may have contributed to any confusion or lack of recollection of events.

“Do you feel like some of your words are being taken out of context today?” Mylan asked.

“Yes,” Rotenelli said.

Mylan then asked Rotenelli if Oliver had been acting strangely after being dropped off at her house. She agreed he had been fussy, but attributed it to “teething” and tried to treat it with ibuprofen until his ears and some of his extremities began turning colors, prompting her to call police.

“He wasn’t himself. At dropoff he was always smiling,” she said.

“Was he that day?” Mylan asked.

“No,” she said. “In the pit of my stomach I had a feeling.”

Finally, Mylan asked Rotenelli if she was responsible for Oliver’s death.

“Cheska, did you hurt Oliver George on Dec. 30, 2021?” Mylan asked.

“No,” she said.

“Did you kill Oliver George,” Mylan asked.

“I did not kill Oliver George,” Rotenelli said.

Later in the afternoon, the prosecution called pathologist Dr. Jennifer Hammers to testify as an expert witness. Hammers, who did not conduct the autopsy and was hired by the prosecution to review the case, concluded that Oliver died of blunt force trauma to the back of his head and suffered a skull fracture there, along with bleeding on the brain and bruising, among other injuries. She concluded that the manner of his death was a homicide.

She was limited in the scope of her testimony after the defense raised questions about her report, including the timeline of when Oliver suffered the fatal injuries because of her reliance on the criminal complaint and Rotenelli’s testimony during the preliminary hearing in 2022. During a brief hearing before the jury returned from lunch, Costanzo agreed to have Hammers only focus on the cause and manner of death.

The defense has disputed the prosecution’s timeline of events when Oliver was assaulted, and plans to call their own expert witnesses to explain to the jury when they believe the injuries occurred. Costanzo said she would also hold brief hearings outside the presence of the jury before those experts testify to determine what can be allowed at trial.

The trial will resume this morning and is expected to last through at least the end of the week. 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.