BATON ROUGE — A youth with autism described the home of a man accused of sexual battery was a place where "the devils and demons were," according to a teacher who testified Friday at the man's criminal trial.

Michael Hadden, 54, is accused of sexually assaulting three foster children. He was accused in 2022 of sexual battery, molestation of a juvenile and aggravated crimes against nature.

An East Baton Rouge Parish deputy told the panel that the autistic youth had told a teacher at Zachary High School that he had been assaulted and punched. The Department of Children and Family Services removed the child from Hadden's home, but at the DCFS office the juvenile did not speak and was examined at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center.

The teacher, Jamie Byrd, told jurors more details.

She said the student had missed several days of school at the end of March 2022. Usually, Hadden would give updates about why, but Bird said she had not heard from the foster father about the absences.

When the teen returned to school on April 11 and Byrd asked where he was, he told her that he was "being punished from school" in a house in Baton Rouge, repeatedly saying that “the devils and demons were there."

The purported victims were living in a trailer attached to a dilapidated home at the corner of Plains-Port Hudson Road in Zachary.

Zachary High social worker Melanie Thierry then took the stand, saying that she had a session with the teen the day of the complaint. She said that the teen told her that Hadden would take then to "the creepy house" and that "Mr. Mike would come to his room or he would come to his."

The days proceedings concluded with the teen taking the stand himself, accompanied by the court support dog Diesel. 

Because he has a hard time communicating, the court played his favorite song by Jelly Roll to help calm his nerves.

When he was asked how he felt about Hadden, the teen replied that he was mad and that his foster father had hurt him.

Arrest records obtained by the WBRZ Investigative Unit say deputies noted the Department of Child and Family Services previously looked into complaints against Hadden. At one point, the agency temporarily removed a child from his home but later returned him.