Foster mom admits lie in murder case

Jack Kresnak

Detroit Free Press

Aug. 25--A Canton woman charged with killing a 2-year-old foster child in her home last September admitted Friday that in the hours after calling 911, she lied twice to police and once to an EMS technician about what had caused the girl's fatal head injury.

Carol Poole, who is charged with felony murder, involuntary manslaughter and first-degree child abuse in the death of 2-year-old Allison Newman, testified Friday in a pretrial evidentiary hearing before Wayne County Circuit Judge Ulysses Boykin.

Poole, 40, said she did not know why she gave two false stories to Canton police detectives while waiting to see Allison in the intensive-care unit at the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor.

"I don't know why I said that. I wasn't thinking," Poole said, adding that she felt like she was in an out-of-body experience.

"I just said something so that I could go see Allison, so I could get out of that room," she said in response to questions from her attorney, Mark Satawa.

While at the hospital around 3 a.m. on Sept. 22, Poole told detectives first that Allison had fallen in the bathtub, then that she had fallen off the bathroom vanity.

Detectives told her they didn't believe she was telling the truth.

After two hours of questioning at the hospital, Poole said she told police the truth, which was that Allison fell over the railing of the staircase in her home while they were playing "whirly bird," in which a child is twirled in a circle by her arms, legs or both.

In a burst of emotion at the hospital, Poole asked several times for the police officer guarding her to shoot her. She also asked doctors for morphine so she could commit suicide.

Satawa is asking Boykin to not allow Poole's statements to authorities to be used at trial. Boykin said he will rule by Sept. 21.

Contact JACK KRESNAK at 313-223-4544 or jkresnak@freepress.com.