The ex-wife of the Navy diver accused of murdering their 14-month-old son in 2009 said she took methadone for years to ease chronic pain and was "laid up in bed a lot" at their Ford Island home in the months before the boy suffered fatal injuries.

April McVeigh said yesterday in a military courtroom at Pearl Harbor that it was mainly her then-husband, Matthew McVeigh, who woke their two children in the morning, got them ready, drove them to the baby sitter, picked them up, bathed them at night and did the cooking, cleaning and laundry.

She also said she didn’t kill their son, Brayden. She is not charged in his death.

The couple, their daughter, Brodi, then 3, and Brayden were the only people home when Brayden was brought upstairs, not breathing and limp in his father’s arms, on Sept. 18, 2009, April McVeigh told the court.

"I know my daughter didn’t do it. I didn’t do it — I took a polygraph test," April McVeigh said. "It’s a process of elimination. Do I want to believe he (Matt) did it? No."

Matthew McVeigh, 26, is accused of killing his son by striking his head and shaking his body, officials said. He was charged by the military on Feb. 9 with one charge and two specifications of murder, one charge and two specifications of involuntary manslaughter and one charge and one specification of assault in Brayden’s death, the Navy said.

An Article 32 hearing — similar to a civilian preliminary hearing — is being held this week at Pearl Harbor. The judge in the case will recommend to Rear Adm. Dixon Smith whether McVeigh should be tried at court-martial, and on what charges.

McVeigh was a diver with SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1 at Pearl Harbor but was reclassified an engineman second class after his son died. He and his wife have divorced.

April McVeigh said she took prescribed methadone for back pain for about seven years and that when she was in a rehabilitation program, she asked McVeigh to mail her 60 Xanax tablets for anxiety, which he did.

She said doctors removed her gallbladder in the summer of 2009 and that she also had four tooth extractions and five root canals, and was on prescription medicine.

An investigator testified earlier that the couple’s bedroom was a mess of rubbish and empty pill bottles. April McVeigh told the court yesterday, "I never said I was a good housekeeper."

Brayden had been sick and slept downstairs with his father while daughter Brodi slept upstairs with her, McVeigh said. She said she went downstairs during the night of Sept. 17, 2009 and checked on Brayden twice while Matt slept on the couch.

The next morning, she said, she felt Matt’s weight on the bed as he picked up Brodi to get her ready. At some point she heard Brayden cry downstairs, but she said she didn’t get up.

McVeigh said Matt came upstairs holding a limp Brayden and said, "I think there’s something wrong with Brayden." She said she screamed that their son wasn’t breathing.

At the hospital, Matt "kept saying that he was sorry, that it was all his fault. He was sorry. He did make the statement, ‘There goes my career,’" McVeigh said.

The boy suffered severe brain damage, was declared brain dead and died two days later on Sept. 20, 2009, when he was taken off life support, family and reports said.

McVeigh said her husband wanted the death certificate to collect life insurance money that could be used to hire a lawyer for her because a military lawyer would be appointed for him. Matt McVeigh said if he "had to take the fall" for Brayden’s death, he’d "only do seven years," April McVeigh said.

Defense attorney Lt. Cmdr. David Norkin asked McVeigh why she told Navy investigators 11 times on Sept. 28, 2009, that she could not envision Matt killing Brayden. She responded by asking who would think the man a woman loved and had kids with would be capable of something like that.

Lakeysha Cardona, the wife of another SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1 member and a baby sitter for the McVeigh children, said Monday that Matt McVeigh was having work, financial and marriage problems, and "he felt like she (April) wasn’t doing her part."