Woman Acquitted In Death Of Daughter

April 26, 2004

Woman Acquitted In Death Of Daughter

The Associated Press

ROSWELL — Jurors have cleared a woman in the death of her 3-year-old daughter in Roswell.

A jury deliberated three hours before acquitting Veronica Bogey last week of three child abuse charges. State District Judge Charles Currier earlier tossed out two other child abuse charges, saying the state had not presented sufficient evidence.

Authorities alleged Grace Bogey, who was born with spina bifida and was paralyzed from the waist down, died Sept. 2, 2000, from head injuries resulting from abuse.

But Veronica Bogey's attorney, Gary Mitchell, said the child died of pneumonia.

The state Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque ruled the death a homicide because of injuries to her head and body.

The defense brought in four doctors to look at the autopsy report and study two sets of X-rays taken of the child at the hospital before her death and by the Office of the Medical Investigator after her death.

The OMI said the child had a broken arm; the doctors testified for the defense that neither X-ray showed a broken arm at the time of her death.

"We just spent hundreds of hours researching all of the medical records, the literature, and looking at things they had never looked at and found that she died of pneumonia," Mitchell said.

Veronica Bogey was arrested June 24, 2002, at her North Carolina home and was extradited to Roswell a month later.

The charges had been brought by the state attorney general's office, partly on the basis of doctors from the OMI and the University of New Mexico.

Attorney General Patricia Madrid said she was disappointed in the outcome. "These cases are very difficult to try," she said.