"Johnny Paddock looked down at the marks, hung his head and said, 'David, I'm so sorry,'" Heather Binder, a former Johnston County social worker, told the jury. Binder was called out the day that the Paddocks' youngest child, Sean, 4, died of suffocation.

The children offered excuses to Binder about the bumps and bruises that covered their bodies, she testified.

Ray, then 15 and the oldest of the children Binder dealt with that day, told her David was banged up because he "throws fits" and probably injured himself in the process. David Paddock, then 9, told Binder that his little brother died because "he was playing," Binder testified.

"There was no life behind his eyes," she said. "He seemed to be a very sad child."

David shook as Binder inspected his body, she testified. He was extremely thin, she said. He limped, too, the result, a doctor said earlier, of some severe ankle injuries.

Over time, the children began to confide in Binder, she said. At one point, the younger girls told Binder that they'd been spanked by her mother with Johnny Paddock's belt.

"They said that [Johnny] he might of liked it because during some of the discipline, he smiled," Binder told jurors.

Binder said that, on the day Sean died, Johnny Paddock told her that he was not opposed to his wife's discipline techniques.

Johnny Paddock has not been charged in Sean's death or the abuse of the other children. Throughout the trial, defense attorneys have pressed witnesses on how much Johnny Paddock knew about his wife's discipline of the children.

Earlier today, an emergency room doctor at Johnston Memorial Hospital told jurors that David and two other Paddock children — Hannah, 7, and Kayla, 8 — were covered in bruises when he examined them the day Sean died.

"All the children had told me that their mother had hit them with a whipping stick," Dr. Benjamin Winter testified.

Lynn Paddock is on trial for first-degree murder in the death of Sean, who was adopted in 2005. The child suffocated when he was bound so tightly in blankets he couldn't breathe.

Prosecutors showed jurors photos of the children's bruises.

"These [injuries] were not accidental," Winter said. "In some instances, children are smarter than adults. A child won't put themselves in a position to re-injure an injured part. You won't have this many over this much part of your body in this many different stages of healing unless you're a football player."

Earlier this morning, a special agent with the State Bureau of Investigation testified about statements Lynn Paddock's oldest daughters made six weeks after Sean's death.

Agent Janie Pinkston Sutton interviewed Jessy and Tami Paddock after the daughters said they wanted to tell the truth about what happened in the family's farmhouse outside Smithfield.

Tami and Jessy have testified that they lied to social workers and investigators after Sean died. They said they were trying to cover for their mother because they feared they would be abused if they turned against her.

Pinkston Sutton read aloud for jurors lengthy statements by Tami and Jessy. Both young women received immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony against Paddock, who also is accused of child abuse. Both Tami and Jessy were adults when Sean died and when the other children were abused.

Under questioning by Paddock's attorney, Pinkston Sutton said she was unaware that Tami and Jessy had been granted immunity in exchange for the testimony she gathered. She also said she didn't know that the two had been interviewed by other law enforcement officers previously and had made conflicting statements.