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Expert witnesses dispute medical examiner's conclusion

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Expert witnesses dispute medical examiner's conclusion

By Vishal Persaud

Staff writer

Published: Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 8:20 p.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 8:20 p.m.

Two of the defense's expert witnesses in the Violet Ray murder trial disputed the prosecution's evidence Thursday, and testified that a short fall also could have been the cause for 2-year-old Faith Ray's lethal head injury that caused her death.

"It's common knowledge that people do get hurt from short falls," said Edward Willey, a physician who practices forensic medicine.

Willey's expert opinion offered a significant counterpoint to testimony given by Wendy Levezzi, a deputy chief medical examiner on Wednesday.

She said that Faith's injuries were comparable to a person falling out of a fourth-story window or being involved in a severe car accident. She also said that the child could not have suffered the injuries from a single fall, and that her injuries were the result of someone hitting her with a cylindrical object.

Ray, 38, Faith's adopted mother at the time of the incident, is on trial for the toddler's murder and also is charged with aggravated child abuse and child neglect. If found guilty of the murder, Ray could spend the rest of her life in prison.

Willey also testified Thursday that the toddler bruised easily due to a medical condition that causes spontaneous bleeding underneath the skin, which could explain the multiple bruises found on the child's back and buttocks.

"Those people (with the medical condition) bruise spontaneously with little or no trauma," he said.

But the doctor could not offer a determinate explanation for the child's severe head injury on cross-examination from Assistant State Attorney Nicholas Camuccio, and said it could have been the result of an "accidental blow," but also did not "exclude physical abuse as the cause for the injury."

To help explain the possibility of an accidental fall to a packed courtroom of onlookers and the jury, the defense presented testimony from John Lloyd, an expert in the field of ergonomics, which embraces areas of psychology, systems engineering and bio-mechanics.

Lloyd testified that he designed a hypothetical experiment to recreate the possibility that Faith fell from a chair while attempting to climb up to a kitchen table to get a slice of pizza.

Allegedly the child ran from the bathroom after she received a bath and was still wet as she tried to climb up the chair to get the pizza. Lloyd said the child could have slipped from the chair and fallen onto the tile kitchen floor.

"The head injury the baby sustained was consistent from a fall from the height of the chair," he said.

The ergonomist said he conducted 10 different experiments as to possible scenarios for Faith's fall and all were consistent with the head injuries she sustained.

Unlike testimony from the medical examiner, who said the child's injury was similar to a fall from a fourth-story window, Lloyd said it was like running into a brick wall at 65 mph with no helmet on. That type of impact, he said, would cause serious injuries to not only an infant, but an adult too.

Lloyd also cited a study he did on bedridden military veterans falling out of their beds feet first and concluded that a fall of about 3 feet from a bed could cause fatal head injuries to a man that was about 5-foot-7 tall and 170 pounds.

"Short falls can and do result in fatal injuries for adults and children," he said.

The defense will continue to present their case today.

2012 May 17