Christopher Gregor, a dad in New Jersey, is currently on trial for the death of his 6-year-old son, Corey Micciolo. Gregor made Corey run on a treadmill at a local New Jersey gym, claiming the little boy was "too fat." Video evidence showed that Corey repeatedly fell off the treadmill as Gregor increased the speed, which ended up causing fatal injuries. Corey's mother, Breanna Micciolo, was seen in court crying as the video was played. She says she had no idea what kind of abuse her son endured.
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The video footage of Corey on the treadmill is absolutely heartbreaking. Corey begins to run faster than his little legs are capable of as Gregor increased the speed and incline on the machine. His legs give out and he falls onto the ground. Gregor picks him up and places him back on the machine multiple times, at one point biting him on top of the head. Eventually, Gregor decreased the speed.
"He had a bruise on his forehead," Corey's mother, Bre Micciolo, told the court while on the stand. "It was very odd-shaped. It looked like an impression. He had one on his chest. It looked like a scrape." She took him to the pediatrician, where Corey revealed that his dad told him to run on the treadmill "because he was too fat." Micciolo also reported the injuries to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency, she told the court. She revealed that she was afraid her son would die. One day after his trip to the doctor, Corey was dead.
On April 2, 2021, Gregor took Corey to the hospital after the boy woke up slurring his speech and stumbling. He also suffered from nausea and shortness of breath. While receiving a CT scan, Corey had a seizure, and by that evening he was pronounced dead. An initial autopsy stated the little boy's cause of death was due to blunt force injuries, along with cardiac and liver contusions, acute inflammation, and sepsis. Gregor's lawyer tried to argue that those findings did not lead to Corey's death and that the boy died of sepsis caused by pneumonia.
An independent forensic pathologist, Dr. Thomas Andrew, was brought in to review Corey's case and ruled the boy's death a homicide. Based on the evidence Dr. Andrew found, he believed that Corey had been chronically abused. He found blunt impact injuries on his chest and abdomen with a laceration on his heart, left pulmonary contusion, and laceration and contusion of his liver. Dr. Andrew also believed that Corey suffered an acute traumatic injury about four to 12 hours before he died.
Gregor was initially arrested for endangering the welfare of a child before being officially charged in March 2022 with child endangerment and murder. He is currently on trial and being held without bond.
