From the story, it appears the police believe the woman’s last story–that she was playing a game that involved wrapping the kid in a sleeping bag and running aroud the house, and that she accidentally hit the kid’s head against a door frame while doing this.
But that doesn’t describe a murder, does it? Esp. not a murder offense that could merit the death penalty?
But maybe the story is missing some information. Maybe I’m wrong that the police believe her story, even though the report implies that they do.
Because they don’t believe the babysitter’s story perhaps? I"ve would never approve of a game that involved wrapping an infant up and slinging the child over ones shoulder while you ran around the house. Not by a sitter, ever. WTF.
Reading the article, I don’t get that the police still believe her final story about wrapping with a sleeping bag and jogging around the house (which strikes me as a remarkably stupid thing to do with a 1 year old). The article says:
“She was initially charged with risk of injury to a minor and reckless endangerment and was released on bond Tuesday. After reviewing the medical examiner’s report, officers re-arrested her late Wednesday and charged her with capitol felony, a murder charge that carries a possible death penalty or life in prison without parole if she is convicted.”
It sounds to me like they found her story somewhat plausible (though lying to the police first, then admitting she may have hit the baby’s head on a doorway twice probably wasn’t her best move), but the coroner’s report didn’t mesh well with her story.
And don’t forget - journalists will always include the most severe legal penalty in the article, regardless of the likelyhood of that penalty being imposed in a particular case. CT has executed exactly one person since reinstating the death penalty 35 years ago.
In a common law jurisdiction, a homicide can be involuntary and still be murder. If a killing is done with a reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life, it’s depraved heart murder, aka abandoned and malignant heart murder. It’s like involuntary manslaughter, but worse. If involuntary manslaugher is, say, doing 90 down a winding county road and killing somebody, depraved heart murder is something like doing 90 through a school zone as the kids are being let out.
That doesn’t sound like what’s happening in the OP, though. She’s being charged with capital murder, which means the police don’t believe her story and think she intentionally beat the child and caused its death.
Yeah- this incident occured around here. No one, especially the cops, believe the sitter’s story. She was charged with murder after the M.E. report came out. They now believe she beat the toddler to death.
One of the articles I read about this pointed out that it was capital murder because it involved a child. Ah here it is: “The capital charge was filed because the death involved someone under the age of 16, the authorities said.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/nyregion/18toddler.html?ref=nyregion
It looks like their charging her with felony murder, too.
So it’s pretty clear the coroner’s findings don’t match any of her stories.