By RUSS OLIVO

PROVIDENCE — The Superior Court trial of a Woonsocket man accused in the 2004 beating death of his 3-year-old foster son will begin this morning with opening arguments from lawyers in the case, followed by testimony from the first of the state’s witnesses.

Gilbert Delestre, 26, is charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy in the death of Thomas “T.J.” Wright.
A jury of 10 women and four men was seated Tuesday to hear the case. Ultimately, only 12 will be chosen to deliberate Delestre’s fate, with two deemed alternate jurors. The trial is expected to last about two weeks, with perhaps a dozen prosecution witnesses.
Delestre, 26, is one of two people to be tried in the toddler’s murder. Katherine Bunnell, T.J’s aunt and foster mother, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole in September after her conviction on the lesser charge of second-degree murder and conspiracy. If convicted of first-degree murder, Delestre could get life without parole.
Prosecutors say Bunnell, 25, and Delestre brutally beat T.J. in their apartment in the Walnut Hill complex on Diamond Hill Road after coming home from a night of drinking on Oct. 30, 2004 and discovering the child had made a mess of spilled yogurt on the living room floor. The toddler’s injuries were so severe he  was declared brain dead a day later at Hasbro Children’s Hospital.
Bunnell and Delestre had two small children of their own at the time of the incident. But they were also caring for three of Bunnell’s sister’s children, including T.J. and two older brothers, while their mother, Karen Wright, was in prison in Illinois for trafficking in marijuana. The state Department for Children, Youth and Families later came under heavy criticism for certifying Bunnell and Delestre as foster parents, even though the agency had reason to believe the couple had also been involved in drug trafficking.
A clean-cut Delestre sat at the defense table Tuesday wearing a white shirt with a dark suit and tie, occasionally assisting his lawyers in the jury selection process. The lead counsel for Delestre is Robert Mann, a highly-respected criminal lawyer who was court-appointed to represent the defendant.
State Prosecutors Stacy Veroni and Scott Erickson, the same lawyers who tried Bunnell, are arguing the case on behalf of the attorney general. Seated with them at the prosecution table is retired Detective Sgt. Todd Brien, the lead investigator for the Woonsocket Police Department at the time of T.J.’s murder.
The case begins in earnest today following the seating of a jury, a process that took two days. Many jurors have ties to the Blackstone Valley area, prompting Vogel to warn them against exploring any crime scene or location to be described in testimony.
“I know some of you actually live and work in the Woonsocket area,” she said. “Do not pay attention to anything other than what takes place in this courtroom.”
Although few judges allow jurors to take notes of the testimony, Vogel said she would allow jurors to do so. Still, she made it clear she is not a proponent of the practice, saying it could distract jurors from paying full attention to the testimony or lead to conflicts with other jurors’ recollections when it comes time to evaluate the evidence.
“I do not want you to substitute your note-taking for sitting back and allowing the case to unfold before you,” she said. “I’m allowing you to take notes even though I have so many misgivings about it.”
Once a pool of possible jurors was assembled, lawyers subjected some to individual questioning before exercising their rights to exclude certain individuals for reasons they are not required to explain. The state exercised three of the so-called peremptory exclusions, the defense five, before the panel was ultimately seated.
The questions focused on whether prospective jurors would be unable to evaluate the evidence in an unemotional, unbiased fashion for any reason, including their understandable sympathies for such a young victim.
“I’m not asking you not to be sympathetic,” Mann told jurors at one point. “Obviously this involved the death of a 3-year-old boy. Everybody’s sympathetic with the death of a 3-year-old boy.”