Doctor testifies 2-year-old Fremont foster child died from stroke

By Ben Aguirre Jr.

Oakland Tribune

HAYWARD — A medical doctor hired by a defense attorney testified Monday that foster child Dylan James George died in October 2004 from a stroke, and said that the pathologist who performed his autopsy failed to gather all of the evidence before determining that the boy died from blunt trauma to the head.

The doctor, who reviewed the pathologist's notes and several police and doctor reports before forming her own opinion in 2005, also concluded that the vast majority of the wounds seen on Dylan's head during autopsy were "superficial" and nonfatal.

Dr. Janice Ophoven, who works in Minnesota studying deaths in children, was one of two people to take the stand Monday in the murder trial of Terry Howard Corder, a 45-year-old Fremont man charged with killing Dylan.

Sherrie Lynn Corder, the defendant's 45-year-old wife and former co-defendant in the case, also testified earlier in the day. She is expected to be recalled by defense attorney Barbara Thomas later this week.

Ophoven told the court that she and other doctors — including those who examined Dylan in October 2004 when he was initially admitted to the hospital — saw a CT scan of his brain and noted that he was suffering from a stroke.

She said she believed this was the cause of Dylan's death, and not blunt trauma to the head as concluded by Alameda County Medical Examiner Sharon Van Meter. Van Meter is expected to testify later during the trial.

Prosecutors

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contend that Terry Corder assaulted Dylan in the days before he died because the toddler would not eat food that Sherrie Corder had prepared earlier in the day.

Corder's wife, who accepted a plea agreement in 2006, and one of his daughters have testified earlier in the trial that they saw Terry Corder hit the boy on the head with his knuckles the day before he was hospitalized. Sherrie Corder also testified at one point her husband kicked Dylan in the head as he lay on the ground.

On the stand, Ophoven told jurors that while many of the injuries did not appear to her to be serious, there was a large injury on the boy's forehead that she was concerned about. However, she said it is unclear what caused it, how serious it was, or how old it was.

Although she could not rule that wound out as causing a stroke — strokes can be caused by trauma, she said — Ophoven said it's impossible to tell if it contributed to the boy's death because not enough tissue samples were collected by the pathologist.

During the initial stages of the investigation, the Corders told police that Dylan slipped in the bathtub on Oct. 2, 2004, and that he was not breathing the next morning, which prompted Sherrie Corder to call for help. Dylan died in the hospital on Oct. 4, 2004, after spending more than a day on life support.

During trial, Sherrie Corder admitted that she initially lied to police and that her husband was the one who concocted the story about the boy falling in the bathtub as an alibi for the bruises.

She also said that Terry Corder said it was a shame that the couple could not hide the boy's body when it was discovered that he was not breathing. Terry Corder also urged his wife to take the blame for the incident, reasoning that he could care for their three biological daughters by himself, Sherrie Corder testified last week.

On Monday, Ophoven said that Van Meter's ruling as to the cause of death could have been skewed because she knew that investigators were working the case as a suspected homicide.

Under cross examination, Deputy District Attorney Elgin Lowe asked Ophoven if she used police interviews with Sherrie Corder or her daughters while conducting her analysis of the case.

When Ophoven said she had, Lowe asked Ophoven if she had considered the statements from Sherrie Corder and her then-5-year-old daughter, the ones that implicate Terry Corder in assault.

The doctor said she did not. She reasoned that 5-year-old witnesses generally are not credible, and said that she considered Sherrie Corder's changing story to be invalid.

"What she said doesn't make sense," Ophoven testified.