Police who answered an emergency call at a gay man's Arkansas apartment confessed in Court that they did not try to revive a dying boy because they were not carrying their disease-deterrent masks.

Joshua Macabe Brown, 23 and Davis Don Carpenter, 39 have been accused of sodomising and murdering 13-year-old Jesse Dirkhising.

Police officers said at Brown's trial Thursday that the boy was lifeless and the boy's side, back and buttocks were smeared with excrement when they entered Brown's home on September 26, 1999. Carpenter will be tried in May on identical charges of capital murder and rape.

Under cross-examination, both Jason Curry, a former Rogers police officer now with the US Border Patrol in Arizona and former Corporal Ian Smith said the boy had a weak pulse when they arrived but they were not carrying masks necessary to protect themselves from disease. The use of the masks has been stipulated by the Police Department.

Curry said that when he then went to get the masks the paramedics arrived and attempted to resuscitate the boy. However, the boy was pronounced dead a short time later at a hospital.

A medical examiner's report said Jesse died from positional asphyxia, being unable to breathe because of the way he was bound on a bed.

At the trial, jurors heard the 911 call from Brown's roommate, Carpenter that they were 'playing some kind of ... damned game and tying each other up.'

Brown was naked when Curry and Smith arrived, and still was naked when paramedics arrived a few moments later.

According to police, Brown took a break from the assault to eat a sandwich and discovered that the boy was not breathing. He called out to Carpenter, who called police.

Both men could face the death penalty if convicted.