photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Carrody Buchhorn testifies at her wrongful conviction trial Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

“Because I am innocent!” Carrody Buchhorn told a crowded Douglas County courtroom Wednesday when her attorney asked why she was there.

“I want my certificate of innocence,” she said, before emotionally describing how the police “had made everyone think” she had violently killed a 9-month-old boy.

The falsehood, she said, had traumatically upended numerous lives, including her entire family’s, for the better part of a decade.

“It’s been 9 years … I did not do anything to Ollie,” she said, echoing a denial that she said had been falling on deaf ears since 2016, when Oliver “Ollie” Ortiz was found unresponsive on Sept. 29 at the Sunshine Kids day care in Eudora. Buchhorn had cared for him there since he was about 2 months old.

Buchhorn — a wife, mother and now expectant grandmother — took the stand Wednesday afternoon on Day 3 of her wrongful conviction trial. She is suing the State of Kansas for around $400,000 for the 2,072 days, or more than 5.5 years, that she was in jail, prison or on house arrest.

Her second-degree murder conviction was overturned due to ineffective assistance of counsel. Then-Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez vowed to retry Buchhorn, but said in 2023 that she would cease prosecuting her after a forensic pathologist reported that Ollie had died of natural causes.

The State of Kansas, however, is fighting Buchhorn’s claim, and Valdez has said she never believed Buchhorn was not guilty. To prevail, Buchhorn will have to convince Chief Judge James McCabria by a preponderance of the evidence that she is innocent under the state’s wrongful conviction statute.

On Wednesday she described to McCabria how Ollie, on the morning of Sept. 29, 2016, seemed to be having a better than normal day. Ollie tended to be quite fussy and to cry a lot, she said, but on this day, he embraced the day care owner, Gina Brunton, right away and didn’t cry when his mom left.

Around midmorning, though, Ollie “projectile” vomited some oatmeal and yogurt he had been given. It was “all over the place,” Buchhorn said, but Ollie did not appear to be sick. She also noticed that he didn’t wet or soil his diaper as often as he usually did. Around 2:15 p.m., she said, he started making grunting noises and had a small bowel movement. After that he appeared to have gone back to his nap.

At 3:10 p.m. Buchhorn, who said she had been cutting out paper pumpkins for the day care’s bulletin board, looked up and noticed the time. She said she remembered the exact time because Ollie’s dad usually came to pick him up at 3:20, and she felt like she was running behind.

Most of the other kids at the day care were up from their naps, milling about, and she thought it was strange that Ollie wasn’t awake yet because she did not normally have to wake him. She went over and “scooped Ollie up,” as she described it, backed up past some kids and laughed and wondered, “What is he doing sleeping through all this chaos?”

At that point Brunton, who was nearby (and also testified this week), looked down and saw that Oliver’s face, pointed away from Buchhorn, was ashen and his eyelids were blue. She screamed.

That’s when Buchhorn said she turned Ollie over and began trying to revive him, including performing infant CPR, which she estimated she did for about 20 minutes before first responders showed up and took over. Ollie never revived.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Carrody Buchhorn shows how many fingers she used to perform infant CPR on Oliver Ortiz, during her wrongful conviction trial Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

“I was having a panic attack,” she said of the moments thereafter. “I was in shock,” and “I don’t remember a lot after that.”

She did remember texting her best friend, Amber Wells, who lived nearby and with whom she frequently messaged. She said that Wells had medical training as a one-time firefighter and could help deal with the “probably 10 other kids” who were still at the day care.

She also remembers that there were “officers everywhere” and that she was expecting some kind of update, but none was forthcoming with information.

Then the death investigator came in. His clothes were labeled “Coroner” or “Death Investigator,” she said, and that deeply affected her. Wells said Buchhorn “lost it” then and yelled.

“I just told him to leave,” Buchhorn said, while holding back tears in the courtroom, because then “it would become real, and I knew what he was there to say.”

Buchhorn said she got criticized for that reaction at her criminal trial years ago, “but that’s just how I am.”

She also testified about Sept. 8, a day three weeks prior to Ollie’s death, when she ended up sending him home because he seemed very lethargic and limp and just stared as if he were “looking through you.” She had texted her friend Amber Wells that day, “There’s something wrong with Ollie,” and she texted Ollie’s mom later to ask about him and to tell her that the episode “scared the living (expletive)” out of her.

Jane Turner, the forensic pathologist whose report said Ollie died of natural causes, testified Tuesday that she believed that the Sept. 8 episode was related to Ollie’s condition of having a congenital defect in his heart that likely contributed to a heart attack or stroke, which she believes is what ultimately killed him weeks later.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Carrody Buchhorn discusses the layout of a day care at her wrongful conviction trial Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025, in Douglas County District Court. At left is her attorney, Quentin Templeton. Gay Tibbets, representing the State of Kansas, is at right.

Buchhorn first became aware that police considered her a murder suspect on Oct. 4, 2016, right after Ollie’s funeral. She said two law enforcement officers started aggressively interrogating her, insisting that she knew something and that someone had hurt Ollie. They asked her if Brunton had hurt Ollie, and she said no.

“Well, then you had to have done it,” she said they told her.

No, she said, but from that day on “no one has listened,” she insisted. “People think I am lying.”

Brunton has also testified at the wrongful conviction trial, saying that she does not believe Buchhorn would ever hurt a child. She said she contacted Buchhorn’s attorneys, Bill Skepnek and Quentin Templeton, to volunteer to testify.

Even after being confronted in court with text messages between Buchhorn and Wells calling her obscene names and complaining that Brunton violated state adult-to-child ratio standards by being away too often from the day care, Brunton said those matters, which also apparently included Buchhorn looking at private messages on Brunton’s phone and at her private finances, disappointed her but did not affect her conviction that Buchhorn did not kill Ollie.

Buchhorn’s “pottie mouth” was discussed by several witnesses Wednesday, including her two sons, ages 27 and 31, her husband and others, all of whom said she was known to cuss frequently, including referring to others by swear names, but that it was something the whole family did, though not around children.

Buchhorn’s husband of 27 years, who is an operation sergeant major with the Kansas National Guard; her sons; uncle; best friend; and a close friend who worked with Buchhorn at another day care all testified Wednesday that Buchhorn was nurturing and loving toward all children, especially babies, and that she didn’t have it in her to hurt, let alone murder, another person.

Buchhorn’s trial will continue Thursday, when she will face cross-examination. Her attorneys are expected to wrap up their case by the afternoon, and the state is expected to call its first witnesses.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Carrody Buchhorn is pictured with her attorneys, Bill Skepnek, left, and Quentin Templeton, at her wrongful conviction trial Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.