COUPLE FACES MURDER TRIAL MOTHER BALKS AT PLEA BARGAIN WITH FATHER IN SON'S DEATH.

Byline: Holly Edwards Staff Writer

LOS ANGELES - A Newhall couple charged with murdering their 2-year-old son will face a jury trial next month after the mother rejected a joint plea bargain offered Tuesday.

Michael Shires, 27, had agreed to plead guilty to one count of second- degree murder, but, in a last-minute decision, Aprill Starr, 37, refused to plead guilty to child abuse leading to the death of a child. The proposed plea agreement required both Shires and Starr to plead guilty to the charges.

Wearing her long red hair in braids around her face, Starr glared at Shires briefly during the hearing. Before being led into the courtroom, the bailiff said she had threatened to kill her former boyfriend when she saw him at Tuesday's hearing in the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles.

Both sat emotionless, however, as they learned they will now face murder charges when their trial begins Feb. 13.

Shires also will face one count of felony assault on a child leading to death, and Starr will face one count of child endangerment leading to death, officials said.

``Any trial is risky, but she has the right to make the people prove their case against her,'' said Starr's attorney, Deputy Public Defender Drew Edwards. ``I think they're going to have an uphill battle.''

However, Deputy District Attorney Steve Slavitt, who is prosecuting the case, said he believes he has enough evidence to prove the charges against the couple.

``There's a lot of mixed emotions about her because she wasn't home at the time of the murder,'' said Slavitt, adding that Starr repeatedly changed her mind about accepting the plea bargain arrangement. ``But I think the evidence will show she knew the abuse was taking place.''

Shires' attorney, Deputy Public Defender Brady Sullivan, declined to comment on the case, but said he would seek a separate trial for his client. Prosecutors previously have insisted the two be tried together, though Slavitt declined to spell out the reasons for this decision.

According to Sheriff's Department homicide investigators, Shires killed his 2-year-old son, Kyle, on June 6, 1999, in the family's Arch Street home by striking him numerous times in the abdomen.

He then placed the blond, blue-eyed boy in the bathtub, called 911 and said his son had drowned, investigators said.

Shires later confessed to investigators he was upset because Starr had left him at home without cigarettes and that he became enraged when the toddler would not stop staring at him as he watched a football game on television, sheriff's officials said.

An autopsy showed Kyle died of abdominal bleeding and also had bruises on his head, chest, back and thighs that appeared to be recent, leading investigators to conclude he was a victim of repeated abuse, according to court records.

Those who knew the couple testified during a preliminary hearing that Kyle was almost always bruised in the months leading to his death.

Slavitt also stated during the hearing that Starr knew Shires was repeatedly abusing the boy, her eighth child. And, on the day of the boy's death, Shires threatened to kill the boy if Starr left him alone, Slavitt said.

Because of the apparent pattern of abuse, Starr's knowledge of it, and her failure to protect her child, Starr was also charged with murder on the theory of ``implied malice,'' prosecutors said.

However, Starr's attorney said his client had no idea her son was being abused before he died.

``In many ways, she's a victim in this case too,'' said Edwards. ``She didn't know (Shires) had been abusing the child, and then she finds out he'd killed the boy.''

At the time of the boy's death, both Shires and Starr were on parole for a 1995 conviction of abusing another one of Starr's children, then 6 months old, in Apple Valley.