The bruises that peppered 5-month-old Risha J. Lafferty could have been the result of a string of unfortunate accidents.

Or they could have been evidence of long-term abuse – including repeated shaking – that eventually led to her death.

“Shaking was not new to this little girl,” Assistant Dist. Atty. Amy McGowan said in court Tuesday.

For the second time this year, jurors are being asked to decide whether Jay D. Decker, 27, is responsible for the child-abuse killing of his daughter, Risha.

Police found Risha near death on the morning of Oct. 14, 2005, at Edgewood Homes, 1600 Haskell Ave. Medical officials pronounced her dead shortly afterward.

Tuesday morning, jurors heard opening statements and the first round of testimony in a trial that stalled last summer.

Judge Paula Martin declared a mistrial in August after a then-unknown police interview surfaced on the last day of testimony.

Brandi Mae Hendrickson testifies in Douglas County District Court about injuries to her daughter Risha J. Lafferty during the trial of Jay D. Decker, 27, who is charged with killing 5-month-old Risha in October 2005 through repeated abuse.

During Tuesday’s opening statements, McGowan said Risha’s mother, Brandi Mae Hendrickson, would come home from work during the weeks Decker watched Risha between September and October last year and find her daughter with new bumps and bruises.

However, Hendrickson never suspected abuse until it was too late, prosecutors said.

But defense attorneys said Decker was always up front with both Hendrickson and the police when questioned – saying that the bruises happened during several accidents at the house.

The defense also painted Hendrickson as a woman who had more reason to be frustrated with life and raising two children – including being the family breadwinner working a manual labor job at the time Risha was killed.

The trial is scheduled to continue today.