nl_e17

False Allegations of Child Abuse
Since I posted this, I've had additional cases of false accusations, including:
● A case of a baby who was killed when another child jumped off a bed and by a freaky but
plausable mechanism, already known from other cases, ruptured the baby's heart. The autopsy
matched the family's story perfectly (even elegantly), but the case was unusual and there was
dissension in the scientific literature about this kind of injury. I submitted a written report, and
following the local medical examiner's testimony and cross-examination, and prior to the
defense's time, the judge dismissed the case.
● A teenaged boy who apparently had common jock itch, which was mistaken by a
paraprofessional for herpes, and an adult was charged with causing this by sodomizing the
boy; I wrote a letter and have heard no more since.
● A young teenaged girl made assorted accusations, some clearly untrue, against her natural
father, who was in a custody battle with the mother. The local child-protection doctor evidently
mistook the white line that sometimes runs from from the posterior aspect of the vulva to the
anus as a healed laceration. The case is pending.
● Not child abuse, but similar... A man died of a heart attack while smoking in his chair, and
burned after he died. Sonja Casey, was wrongfully (and ridiculously) convicted of a torch
murder. My letter written in an attempt to obtain her release got me a paragraph in the Wall
Street Journal. She was released.
● Not child abuse, but similar... A woman died with extremely advanced Alzheimer's, who had
been fed by gastrostomy for 7 years (she hadn't known to eat for all this time), Finally she
developed the cachexia that happens to these people at the very end. Death was actually due
to heart failure, and it was inevitable considering the extremely advanced Alzheimer's. Although
there was food in the gut, plenty of feces in the colon, and plenty of inner bodyfat, an activist
pushed and the pathologist was willing to call it death by intentional starvation. Incredibly, the
state prosecuted the caretaker for murder. The trial was highly political, with a guy from the
state capitol at the prosecutor's table. I got to tell the court that the medical examiner had also
overlooked two obvious brain infarcts that most second-year medical students would spot
easily. The defendant was acquitted of the murder charge.
● Not child abuse, but similar... A teenaged boy argued with his girlfriend's father in a
weightroom. Later that day, the father complained of chest pain and died. A huge blood clot
was found in a major coronary artery. The local medical examiner took a photograph of what
appeared to be a normal skull marking which happened to be a bit prominent in the dead man,
and a bit of blood from the extraction of the brain. He called the marking a fracture, though he
did not give evidence that the bone fragments were separable, and called the death a murder
from being struck on the head. As a result of this travesty, the teen did two years in jail. My
consultation on the case helped with his ultimate acquittal.
http://www.pathguy.com/abuse.htm (3 of 17) [6/5/2005 8:41:13 PM]