Shaking didn't cause death, doctors testify
Author: Dennis Cassano; Staff Writer
Four expert physicians, including a former assistant Hennepin County medical examiner, testified Friday that the Hennepin County medical examiner's office was wrong when it said 2-year-old Maria Ostlund was shaken to death.
Testifying on behalf of the girl's mother, Janet Ostlund, who is on trial for second-degree murder, the four said the Robbinsdale girl died because she fell from a couch and hit her head on a linoleum floor.
Dr. Janice Amatuzio, formerly assistant Hennepin County medical examiner and now the assistant coroner for Scott, Dakota and Chisago counties, said, "The cause of death was massive brain swelling due to an impact injury from a fall. And the manner of death was accidental."
As for the Hennepin County death certificate that says Maria Ostlund was a victim of homicide, Amatuzio said, "I still strongly disagree with that conclusion."
Earlier in the trial, Dr. Lindsey Thomas, a deputy Hennepin County medical examiner, said she would disagree with any experts who said the child died in a fall.
She said that she and Dr. Garry Peterson, medical examiner, performed the autopsy and concluded the child died from being shaken. She said that one reason for their conclusion was that there was no wound to the scalp indicating the child had received a blow.
There was what she described as an insignificant amount of bleeding under the scalp, but she said that could have been caused when the child fell eight days earlier.
She also said that death by shaking was indicated by small hemorrhages at the back of the eyes.
"It is inconceivable that these injuries could have occurred from a fall off a couch," she said.
Dr. Mace Goldfarb, the child's pediatrician, agreed with her.
The four doctors presented by defense attorney Steve Meshbesher to testify yesterday disagreed.
Dr. William Rodman, an ophthalmologist who examined the child's eyes just before she died, agreed that there were many tiny hemorrhages at the back of her eyes, but said that is an indication that she was not shaken to death.
He said the hemorrhages caused by shaking are 10 to 12 times larger than the ones seen in the back of Maria Ostlund's eyes.
Under cross-examination by Assistant Hennepin County Attorney John Brink, Rodman qualified his testimony to the point that he eventually said, "I cannot say the child was not shaken" because his testimony was based on probabilities.
Dr. Angeline Masteri, assistant professor of neuropathology at the University of Minnesota and a consultant to the medical examiner's office on deaths involving brain damage said she told Thomas at the time of the autopsy that she did not think the child was shaken to death.
She said that not only was the pattern of hemorrhages in the eyes inconsistent with "shaken death," but the bleeding under the scalp was an indication that the child had fallen.
Dr. Robert ten Bensel, a nationally recognized expert on child abuse and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, also said the child died in an accident and that he does not believe she was shaken to death.
He said Maria Ostlund was more susceptible to brain injury because her brain was abnormally small, and therefore the brain material was softer than usual and more vulnerable.
He said he based that conclusion on his experience, but then said he could not remember a specific similar case he had seen.
He said the symptoms in Maria Ostlund fit a diagnosis of an accidental fall better than they fit death caused by shaking.
He and Amatuzio said the lack of a bruise or scratches on her scalp does not mean she did not fall. They said that her head was not shaved so the scalp could be examined for a bruise.
Hennepin County District Judge Robert Schumacher recessed the trial until Tuesday.