PROVIDENCE — Babysitter Kayla Roderick had been asleep just a couple of hours on the living room rug next to 3-year-old Thomas “T.J.” Wright when she was suddenly awakened by screaming.

Thomas’ aunt Katherine Bunnell and her boyfriend, Gilbert Delestre, had returned to their apartment at 2229 Diamond Hill Rd., in Woonsocket. Bunnell was enraged. “What happened to my [expletive] house. What happened to my floor?”

“The house is a mess again. Look at this [expletive] house. Look at this mess,” Delestre yelled.

Roderick looked up and noticed that Thomas was no longer asleep on the couch beside her. When she got up she realized what they were talking about. Somebody had spilled yogurt and milk on the living room rug.

The mess on the floor would lead Bunnell and Delestre to take turns beating Thomas, Roderick testified yesterday in Superior Court during the second day of Delestre’s murder trial.

Prosecutors say Bunnell and Delestre beat Thomas so severely he suffered broken bones and head injuries that left his brain so swollen it had no place to move inside his skull. Delestre, 27, faces charges of murder and conspiracy. Bunnell was convicted in May of second-degree murder and was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.

Delestre’s lawyer, Robert Mann, said Wednesday that Delestre hit Thomas and he fell down the stairs, but Delestre did not intend to kill him.

Roderick was 15 on Oct. 29, 2004, when she agreed to babysit for Thomas, his two brothers, and Bunnell and Delestre’s two daughters. Bunnell and Delestre were caring for Thomas and his brothers in addition to their own children while Bunnell’s sister served prison time in Illinois for drug possession.

Roderick recalled yesterday that she told Bunnell she thought Thomas had made the mess on the rug because he had been playing with toothpaste upstairs earlier. She said Delestre went upstairs and shortly afterward she heard two or three loud slaps and heard Thomas crying.

Shortly afterward Bunnell went upstairs and carried Thomas down by his upper arms, her knees hitting his back each time she took a step. When she got to the bottom of the steps, she dropped him and he hit his stomach and face on the floor, Roderick said.

“Why did you mess up my [expletive] house? Why did you do that?” Roderick said Bunnell screamed. Roderick said Bunnell hit Thomas in the back and in the chest with a semi-closed fist.

“Why didn’t you say anything,” prosecutor Stacey Veroni asked her.

“I was afraid. That was her nephew. That was her family. If she did that to him I was afraid what she would do to me,” Roderick said.

She said Bunnell dragged the boy to where he had made the mess and slapped him across the face four times. She got milk from the kitchen and poured it on his head.

Roderick said she was distracted when she heard someone throwing up outside and looked to see Jose Santiago, Delestre’s cousin, vomiting in the parking lot. When she turned back into the house Thomas was flying through the air. He landed with his left leg twisted under his stomach, she said. He came flying from Delestre’s direction, she said. Delestre’s arms were just going down to his side, she said.

“You better get him out of here before I drop him,” Roderick said Delestre said.

On cross-examination Robert Mann questioned why Roderick did nothing. “Did you make a dive for him? When T.J. fell did you run to his side? Did you scream when he was flying through the air?” She answered no.

Roderick said she last saw Thomas on the steps where Delestre had placed him. She said he had leaned against the wall and was breathing heavy.

Roderick said Bunnell was still in a rage when she took her home. “I swear to God I’m going to go home and do it all over again. I’m going to go home and kill him,” Roderick remembered Bunnell saying. On the way, Bunnell was stopped for speeding by Woonsocket Patrolman Joshua Smith at 3 a.m. Mann asked Roderick why she did not tell the police. “You heard Gilbert say get him out of here before I drop him. You heard Katherine saying, ‘When I get back I’m going to [expletive] kill him’ … You don’t say anything to police?”

After going home Roderick still did nothing, Mann said. “You don’t wake your mother to say Katherine is going to kill him, Gilbert is going to drop him … You just stay in your room?”

tpina@projo.com