Ex-Boyfriend Denies Telling Mother He’d Watch Twins

The former boyfriend of a woman accused of killing her twin infants by leaving them in a hot car for five hours last summer denied at her trial Tuesday that he agreed to watch them while she took a short nap.

But Scott Morrow did admit for the first time that he had invited Beverly Jean Ernst into his living quarters in Garden Grove that July morning, with the babies left outside in her car.

Ernst, 26, is on trial in Orange County Superior Court in Westminster on two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of felony child endangerment in the deaths of her 3-month-old twins, Adam Ray and Ashley Rachelle. The babies died of heat stroke in her unattended car July 20.

Left Alone in Car

Testimony shows that the infants were left alone in the car at about 7 a.m., when Ernst and Morrow went inside a storeroom where he was living on Euclid Avenue. It was past noon, after they both had awakened from five hours of sleep, when they remembered the children and called paramedics after finding them in the car.

Deputy Public Defender Dennis P. O’Connell has told jurors that when Morrow and Ernst returned to the storeroom from a coffee shop early that morning, Morrow coaxed her into staying with the promise that he would watch the infants while she slept for about 15 minutes.

Morrow vehemently denied that accusation Tuesday and accused O’Connell of trying to make him “look bad.”

But Morrow has changed his version of events since October’s preliminary hearing. At that hearing, Morrow testified that when Ernst drove him back to the storeroom, he went inside and went to sleep. At one point, he said he didn’t know what Ernst did. At another point, he said she may have gone inside, too, but wasn’t sure.

On Tuesday, Morrow said the two of them went inside, sat on the fold-out couch for a few minutes and then fell asleep. While he denied that he “coaxed” Ernst to go inside, he did say, during cross-examination, that she had told him she had other things to do and that she went in at his invitation.

There were other changes in Morrow’s testimony.

At the preliminary hearing, Morrow said Ernst woke up and immediately screamed something about, “Why did I let her sleep so long and why didn’t I wake her up.” But Tuesday, Morrow insisted she didn’t say that until after she had been awake a few minutes.

At the preliminary hearing, Morrow said he suggested to her after they discovered the children were dead: “Let’s get our stories straight.” But Morrow said Tuesday that he had told her, “Get your story straight” and added that he had only meant that she should calm down.

Arrested in Nevada

The prosecution’s contention is that no matter what Morrow may have said to Ernst about watching the children, they were her responsibility as long as they remained in the car while she went inside.

Morrow was arrested last fall in Reno shortly before the preliminary hearing and was brought back to testify. He said Tuesday that he fled because he did not want to have to testify against Ernst. But he denied the defense attorney’s contention that he had left the state and cut and dyed his hair because he feared that he would be prosecuted for the babies’ deaths.

At October’s preliminary hearing, Morrow spoke sympathetically about Ernst. But Tuesday, he referred to her formally as “Miss Ernst.”

Morrow said Tuesday that he feels guilty about the twins’ deaths because “I was one of the adults there; I could have changed things.” But Morrow insisted that did not mean that he felt legally responsible for what happened.

Morrow admitted that he had lied to police about how long Ernst had been asleep but said he did it to try to protect her.

Ernst, who has been free without bail, has kept up the same composure from the time that testimony began Monday. She has kept her head down and away from the jury and has written almost constantly on legal paper, almost never looking up.

Morrow will continue undergoing cross-examination by O’Connell today.