A jury found a Lyndeborough man not guilty Friday in the death of a Keene toddler.

Annthoni Bliss, 24, was charged with second-degree murder, accused of fatally abusing 23-month-old Luca Hudson in January 2024. He pleaded not guilty.

After a nine-day trial in Cheshire County Superior Court, the jury began its deliberations Thursday afternoon and entered its decision just before 2:30 p.m. on Friday.

Luca’s mother, Lydia Marrotte, visibly and audibly upset, left the Keene courtroom following the verdict’s delivery, while Bliss, supported by his attorneys, appeared emotional. A collective cry of relief was heard from the side of the room behind Bliss.

Defense attorney Monique Schmidt said she was pleased that the jury was attentive during the trial, and pointed to Bliss’ choice to testify — as well as what she thought was a “total absence of evidence” that Bliss harmed the toddler — as key in securing a not guilty verdict.

Senior Assistant N.H. Attorney General Peter Hinckley, who prosecuted the case, told The Sentinel he respected the verdict and thanked the jury for their service.

“Obviously, [it’s] very emotional for those who loved Luca,” he said.

The trial

On Sunday, Jan. 17, 2024, Luca was brought to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, where he died the same day. An autopsy determined he died by homicide from blunt force trauma to his head.

Bliss, who was in a relationship with Marrotte when Luca died, was arrested in March 2025.

Under state law, a person has committed second-degree murder if they knowingly cause the death of another person and cause “such death recklessly under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life,” according to RSA 630:1.

During the course of the trial, which started Oct. 26, prosecutors argued that abuse by Bliss caused Luca’s death, and presented Dartmouth Hitchcock doctors who said it was caused by blunt force trauma to Luca’s head. The defense said the prosecution failed to prove its case, and presented a medical expert who said she believes Luca’s death was due to a rare scalp bleed that resulted from a minor impact during play or normal caregiving activities.

In addition to inflicting a fatal injury, the prosecution accused Bliss of failing to promptly call 911 when he realized something might be wrong with Luca. Bliss testified that he called 911 after finding Luca unconscious in his crib.

The defense argued that the police set out to investigate the case with a pre-determined narrative in mind.

“They tried their hardest to fit a square peg into a round hole,” defense attorney Schmidt told the jury in her closing argument Thursday. “What you got was speculation instead of evidence, a theory instead of proof.”

Medical testimony

A pair of medical experts called by the state testified that abusive trauma killed Luca, with one telling the court that no minor impact, such as one suffered during play or normal caregiving activities, could have caused the injuries that led to the toddler’s death.

Instead, the doctors from Dartmouth Hitchcock testified, the injuries that Luca suffered — which included bleeding between his scalp and skull and swelling of his brain — could be explained by a single severe impact trauma with a rigid surface or having been shaken violently.

While the medical experts did not know what exactly caused the toddler’s heart to stop, they said they believed the injury was severe.

The defense called its own medical expert to the witness stand, pathologist Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, who testified that a scalp bleed called a subgaleal hematoma — caused by a minor impact sustained during play or normal caregiving activities — led to the brain swelling that caused Luca’s death.

Police investigation

The case against Bliss included that he failed to disclose to police he had been alone with Marrotte’s children, made Google searches regarding head injury symptoms while he and Marrotte were with Luca, and provided an investigator with a different account of the night the toddler became sick than he had initially given to police.

Bliss’ defense spent much of the trial attempting to convince the jury that investigators jumped to conclusions while working the case, highlighting the extent to which they searched for evidence against Bliss, versus how they treated Marrotte.

One instance the defense attorneys cited was the search of Bliss’ phone, which they said was more in-depth than that of Marrotte’s.

Bliss, mother testify

Both Bliss and Marrotte took the witness stand during the trial to discuss the night in January 2024 when Luca became visibly unwell.

Marrotte detailed the final days before her son’s death, testifying that she had left her two kids — Luca and his then-4-year-old older brother — at her Keene apartment with Bliss while she went to Manchester to get a tattoo.

She initially withheld that fact from police, she testified, not wanting her sons’ father to know that she was seeing someone else at the time. She said she did not tell the father nor providers at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center that there had been anyone else at the apartment.

She also testified that she would have called 911 earlier had she known her son had a head injury.

During his testimony this week, Bliss described the night that he and Marrotte discovered that Luca was ill. He made Google searches while observing Luca alongside Marrotte, he testified, showing Marrotte the searches.

She testified that she was unaware of the internet searches and did not know that her son had a head injury.

Bliss later deleted those searches, but testified that he notified police to that fact before he gave them his phone.

He also testified that he called 911 after finding Luca rigid in his crib.

Trial reporting by Assistant News Editor Abigail Ham was used in this article.