SIDS: Texas: indictment after second death

June 27, 2011 : JESSICA COOLEY

Vanessa Clark

Mark Clark

A Lufkin couple has been indicted on a charge of child endangerment after their second infant in two years died while sleeping in their bed against Child Protective Services instruction.
Mark and Vanessa Clark, both 32, were formally charged by a grand jury last Thursday in their infant boy’s July 9, 2010, death, according to District Attorney Clyde Herrington. As for the grand jury’s decision to indict the couple, Herrington called it is a peculiar case as the couple lost another baby in a similar sleeping incident 14 months earlier.
“There was a previous investigation with another child by Child Protective Services. The first infant’s death was ruled (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome),” Herrington said. “In the (new) case, the child was about 3 or 4 months old and sleeping in the bed with the parents. They woke up and found him not breathing.”
Following the first infant’s death, the couple was given a course by Child Protective Services in safe sleeping practices, according to CPS spokeswoman Shari Pulliam. That information strictly states sleeping with an infant puts the child at risk for suffocation, Pulliam said.
Herrington went on to say that the infant’s death is neither a negligent homicide nor a murder, but the grand jury felt the parents put the child in danger by sleeping with him.
“We presented the facts to grand jury and they felt the parents put the child in danger,” he said. “It’s a really tragic case.”
The Clarks are out of the Angelina County Jail on $5,000 bonds, according to court records.
Endangering a child is a state jail felony carrying a sentence of up to two years. State jail sentences are served day for day.
According to information on the Texas Department of Family Protective Services website, almost 400 Texas babies die in their sleep each year either suddenly and without a clear explanation or due to accidental suffocation or strangulation.
http://lufkindailynews.com/news/local/article_aea87510-a0e6-11e0-b30c-001cc4c002e0.html

SBS: Ohio: Timothy White

February 19, 2011 By Elise Franco

Youngstown

An Austintown man accused of abusing his ex-girlfriend’s baby stood in silence as he was sentenced to four years in prison for child endangering.
Timothy White, 30, was sentenced Friday for the second-degree felony by Judge Lou A D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. The charge stemmed from injuries to the now 3-year-old girl sustained in November 2009 while in White’s care.
The child, whose name was never made public by police, suffered brain damage, a broken rib, stomach bleeds, damage to her liver and adrenal glands, second- degree burns on her genitals, foot and finger — and hemorrhaging in one eye that an Austintown detective previously said is a potential sign of shaken- baby syndrome.
White’s four-year sen-tence will be served in a state prison. White will be credited for the 460 days he’s already served in the Mahoning County jail and will be on parole for three years after his prison release, Judge D’Apolito said.
He originally was charged with three counts of felony child endangering and felonious assault, which was reduced to one charge of child endangering in a plea agreement made in December 2010.
Before White was sentenced, the girl’s mother, Jacqueline Bagshaw, said White’s sentence “doesn’t touch the punishment this monster deserves. ... No time is enough for what he has done.”
She addressed the court with an emotional letter, noting she and her daughter have spent months trying to work through the “pain this so-called human being put us through.”
Her daughter, who requires special care as a result of her injuries, is a different child, Bagshaw said.
She “will never be the little girl she was born to be,” she said. “She is changed, and I notice it every day.”
White’s attorney Mark Lavelle said though what happened to Bagshaw’s child was a “sad and emotional situation,” he didn’t believe the prosecution had enough evidence to convict had the matter gone to trial.
“I was determined that [White] should try this case,” Lavelle said. “As far as the torture and the heinous things he’s accused of, it’s just not held up by the evidence.”
White, who also addressed the judge, didn’t admit to the crimes but said he would take responsibility since the child was left in his care.
“I was taught to take responsibility for my actions,” he said.
Bagshaw said what she fears the most is having to explain the burn scars to her child. She said no amount of jail time will give her daughter’s normal life back.
http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/feb/19/man-gets-4-years-for-child-endangering/

SBS: Ohio: Matthew Boivin pleads guilty

SBS: New Jersey: historical case

January 30, 2011

By BRYAN LAPLACA
COLUMNIST

The Pompton Lakes community was in shock as the story unfolded about a neighbor charged with murdering his infant son allegedly in a frenzied attempt to stop him from crying before the Super Bowl.

A 34-year-old father allegedly shook his son and dropped him while trying to keep him quiet. The man maintained that that his son’s death was an accident.
Even those wanting to believe the injuries sustained by 8-week-old baby on Sunday, Jan. 28 that led to his death two days later were an accident, they found his father’s actions difficult to understand, it was reported.
"Others rejected pity or compassion and felt only outrage as the circumstances of the man's actions were revealed day after day across their television screens and in their morning newspapers," reported Suburban Trends.

The man was initially charged with aggravated assault, endangering the welfare of a minor and child neglect. He was subsequently arraigned on those charges by Municipal Court Judge Stephen Lichon and the man was remanded to Passaic County Jail on $100,000 bail.

When the baby died, however, the charge against his father was upgraded to murder and he was arraigned in Passaic County Superior Court. He was subsequently released on $200,000 bail.

According to police officials, the man’s wife had left her husband at home briefly Sunday afternoon to do some shopping. The couple reportedly planned to host a small Super Bowl party later that day.

When she returned, police said, she noticed that the baby was unusually lethargic and called doctors. The couple subsequently took their infant son to Chilton Memorial Hospital in Pompton Plains, and he was then transported to the Morristown Memorial Hospital Pediatric Intensive Care Unit due to the gravity of his condition.

The baby was placed on life support at Morristown Memorial and when doctors diagnosed his condition as possibly resulting from "'Shaken Baby Syndrome," they notified the Prosecutor’s Office.
Dr. David Bollard of Sparta Medical explained that Shaken Baby Syndrome is "the result of violently shaking a baby back and forth. It causes a hemorrhage at the base of the brain or it can tear the spinal cord at the base of the brain."
In diagnosing this condition, Dr. Bollard said, "You will usually find a pool of blood at the base of the brain and the infant will go into respiratory arrest and death will follow. The injury is equivalent to a hangman's fracture. The injury occurs when the brain is banged violently against the inside of the skull."
The man’s wife and 2-year-old daughter, as well as other family members and friends, were in court with him days later in a show of support of his contention, expressed by his attorney Kalman Geist, that the injuries the father apparently caused his son were accidental.
On Sept. 21, 2001, the man was convicted on one count of endangering the welfare of a minor and faced a maximum term of five years in prison. He was paroled on February 18, 2003.
http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/back_in_the_day/114914944_Feb__4__1996_Infant_dies_after_Super_Bowl-related_injury.html

SBS: Ohio: Matthew Boivin

 January 4, 2011

A defense expert could cast some doubt on allegations that a man from The Plains caused shaken baby syndrome in his infant son.

Matthew Boivin, 22, was indicted by an Athens County grand jury last spring on charges of felonious assault, felony domestic violence and two counts of endangering children, one a felony. His trial is scheduled for Feb. 22.
http://www.athensmessenger.com/news/local/article_70ee605c-17f4-11e0-93ee-001cc4c03286.html