PROVIDENCE –– Katherine Bunnell broke down and cried in court yesterday, interrupting her trial on child murder charges, as the lead investigator read a statement he took from her just hours after 3-year-old Thomas “T.J.” Wright suffered the injuries that led to his death.

“I can’t, I can’t,” Bunnell said and started to sob when retired Woonsocket Detective Sgt. Todd Brien read a question and answer in the first of two statements she gave the police on Oct. 30, 2004, the day T.J. was beaten and she was placed under arrest.

“How many times did you hit T.J.?” Brien asks in the statement.

“Twice. I wouldn’t abuse a kid like that,” Bunnell answers.

Bunnell’s lawyer, Gerard H. Donley, tired to calm her down. He put his arm around her and whispered to her.

But she continued to sob and Donley asked for a recess.

Judge Gilbert V. Indeglia admonished Bunnell when court reconvened.

“I do not in any way want to see a situation where you cannot fully participate in your trial,” Indeglia told Bunnell outside the presence of the jury.

However, if there are further outbursts and they make it difficult for the trial to continue, Indeglia said he would have to consider the alternatives, “including having to remove you from the courtroom.”

“You understand what I’m saying?” the judge asked.

“Yes,” Bunnell answered tearfully.

The outburst took place on the third day of Bunnell’s trial in Superior Court on charges of murder and murder conspiracy.

Bunnell, 24, and her ex-boyfriend, 27-year-old Gilbert Delestre, are accused of fatally beating T.J., a foster child in their care, after they returned home from a night out 3½ years ago and found the mess the toddler had made on the living room floor.

Because each is expected to accuse the other of causing the fatal injuries, Bunnell and Delestre are being tried separately. Both are being held at the Adult Correctional Institutions without bail.

“We walked in. There was food out of the refrigerator all over the living room,” Bunnell says, explaining in the first statement why she became angry and struck T.J.

“And not just that,” Bunnell adds in the second statement. She was also angry “that T.J. took advantage of the babysitter by staying awake and making a mess.”

Brien told Bunnell that the second statement was being taken because the first was inconsistent with the statement of T.J.’s babysitter and seemed to minimize Bunnell’s role.

In the first statement, Bunnell tells Brien she smacked T.J., but, “I only hit him to discipline, to teach him.”

In the second statement, she describes a more prolonged beating in which she hit T.J., picked him up and hit him again after he fell.

The first statement was taken at Woonsocket Police Headquarters at 6:17 a.m.; the second at 11:24 a.m. the day of the fatal beating.

By then, detectives had had an opportunity to interview the babysitter, 15-year-old Kayla Roderick, who saw the start of the beating and provided a detailed account.

Roderick, who testified Wednesday and yesterday, said Delestre went upstairs and slapped T.J. three or four times after discovering the mess in the living room.

Bunnell, who omitted the slaps from the first statement, included them in the second, telling Brien that, when she heard them, she went upstairs and demanded of Delestre, “What did you do?”

Roderick, now 18, said that after the exchange between Bunnell and Delestre, Bunnell carried T.J. downstairs and dropped him onto the carpet.

In the second statement, Bunnell says Delestre brought T.J. downstairs and dropped him. She adds that she suspected her boyfriend was physically abusing the toddler, but when she asked T.J. about it, he would blame his brothers.

“Gilbert looks at T.J.,” she says, “and T.J. blames the other kids.”

Roderick said that after carrying T.J. downstairs and dropping him on the floor, Bunnell picked him and dragged him across the living room, hitting him repeatedly and picking him up and hitting him again when he fell.

Roderick also said that Bunnell grabbed a jug of milk from the kitchen and emptied the contents on T.J.’s head. She said that Delestre picked up the 32-pound toddler and hurled him across the room.

In her second statement, Bunnell admits hitting T.J., picking him up and hitting him again when he fell in the living room. She also admits pouring the milk on his head.

She denies seeing Delestre hurl T.J. across the living room, however, but claims she struck the toddler to stop Delestre from beating him up.

“I thought this would satisfy Gilbert and he would not hit him,” she says.

jcastell@projo.com