Day 2, morning
How long does it take for bruises to appear?
That’s the main question in the second day of witness testimony at the trial of a day care worker accused of killing a child. Although that question has been asked repeatedly, the answer is up for debate.
Cammie Kelly of Springfield is charged with aggravated battery and first degree murder after 11-month-old Kaiden Gullidge of Rochester went unconscious in her care and eventually died in early 2011. Prosecutors say Kelly shook the child and caused his death, while the defense says Kaiden’s own medical problems are to blame.
Kelly’s trial began on Tuesday, featuring testimony from Kaiden’s mother, two police officers, a paramedic and Kelly’s former neighbors. The testimony this morning came from two trauma doctors who treated Kaiden after he went unconscious and two health professionals who observed him before the incident – one a now-retired priority care doctor and another a nutritionist for the county health department.
The testimony largely focused on the fact that none of the medical witnesses noticed any bruising or other outward signs of injury when they came in contact with Kaiden on the night of Jan. 18, 2011. Dr. Konstantin Denev and Dr. Myto Duong both testified that they saw no bruising on the child that night, although photos from his autopsy show bruises of unknown origin. Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Milhiser and assistant State’s Attorney Jeff Cox say that the bruises came from Kelly abusing Kaiden. John Rogers, a St. Louis attorney who represents Cammie Kelly, says the bruises could have come from handling by paramedics, trauma doctors or even the child’s autopsy. Rogers repeatedly questioned the two trauma doctors about why they didn’t notice any bruising – marks that Rogers contends didn’t exist at the time.
“Did you mean to imply that you missed bruising because an 11-month-old’s hair was covering a bruise?” Rogers asked Denev.
When Milhiser and Cox attempted to question Denev and Duong about how long bruises take to appear, Rogers repeatedly objected on the grounds that neither doctor has expertise on bruises. The prosecution and defense went through numerous objections on that matter and others, sometimes stepping to the side to speak privately with Sangamon County Presiding Judge John Belz.
Denev and Duong also testified that tests showed bleeding and swelling of Kaiden’s brain and bleeding of his retinas – a “triad” of symptoms common to “shaken baby” cases. Questioning Denev and Duong, Rogers established that it’s possible for those symptoms to appear from causes other than shaking a child, although both doctors testified that they believed Kaiden’s condition was due to “non-accidental trauma.”
Day 2, afternoon
The interview started out cordial and friendly. It didn’t stay that way.
The prosecution in Cammie Kelly’s case showed video Wednesday of an interview-turned-interrogation of Kelly by Springfield police, taken shortly after the incident. The video showed Kelly repeatedly denying any ill intent, despite continued prodding by detectives.
Running approximately an hour and 40 minutes, the video shown to the jury is missing several portions cut from the original. Based on the timestamp of the video, Kelly was questioned for about two hours on Jan. 20, 2011, two days after Kaiden went unconscious in Kelly’s care and the same day the child died at a Peoria hospital.
Kelly volunteered to talk to the police that day, so she was not under arrest during the questioning and was thus not read her Miranda rights. She also didn’t have a lawyer present.
The video begins with the two Springfield police detectives making small talk with Kelly.
“This is a stressful situation,” Kelly tells the detectives.
“There’s no reason for you to be stressed at all,” one detective responds.
Kelly, who appears cooperative in the video, describes Kaiden to the detectives as having been inactive all day and refusing to eat. When it came time for Kaiden to be picked up from day care, Kelly tells the detectives, she put the child on the floor and turned to get his coat. That’s when Kaiden fell backwards and hit his head on the floor, she says. Kelly describes picking the child up immediately and noticing that he’s unconscious.
“Did you shake him when he fell over,” one of the detectives asks.
“Just like you’d do to get someone’s attention,” Kelly responds, miming a gentle shaking motion.
“You didn’t shake him like that?” a detective asks, reaching over and shaking a water bottle vigorously as a demonstration.
“No,” Kelly says.
Before long, the detectives’ questions become confrontational, strongly implying that Kelly wasn’t telling them something. One of the officers explains that the trauma doctors performed brain scans on Kaiden.
“What you’re telling us happened doesn’t add up to what the pictures tell us happened,” the detective says. “Somewhere along the line, we’re not getting what we need to know.”
“That’s how it happened,” Kelly responds, referring to her earlier explanation. “I didn’t shake him that hard, but if I did, I wasn’t conscious of it.”
The detectives alternate between a handful of tactics, trying to get Kelly to admit to something. They try suggesting that maybe it was an accident on her part that she hadn’t mentioned before. Maybe she got tired or angry and “just snapped.” Perhaps someone else was in the house and harmed Kaiden. Just tell us what happened, the detectives say, so we can help in Kaiden’s treatment.
They try appealing to her conscience.
“You know right from wrong,” one detective suggests.
“I do know right from wrong,” Kelly agrees.
“It’s wrong for you to sit in here and tell me ‘I wasn’t conscious if I shook the baby,’ ” he says.
The detectives work every angle repeatedly for an hour and 20 minutes, but Kelly continues adamantly denying that she or anyone else harmed the child.
“I didn’t willingly do it, I didn’t intentionally do it, and in my heart, I can’t see doing it,” she says.
One of the detectives tells Kelly, “He’s going to die,” in reference to Kaiden. Kelly lays her head on the table and sobs uncontrollably. Even after the detectives leave the room, she continues crying as she says, “I can’t hurt a child. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I’d rather die than hurt a child.”
Sensing that Kelly isn’t going to admit to anything beyond shaking Kaiden to revive him, the officers return and one officer announces that they’re “at an impasse.” As Kelly gets up to leave for a doctor’s appointment, she begins to sob again, and the video ends.
Contact Patrick Yeagle at pyeagle@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2015.
