Mom not guilty in baby death; Lakeville couple says case has left them bankrupt

Author: Jim Adams; Staff Writer

Julie McClure was found not guilty Thursday of charges that she killed her 10-month-old daughter, ending a two-year ordeal during which her family lost their Lakeville home and had an older daughter temporarily removed by child-protection authorities.

"It has been very long and very devastating," McClure, 34, said after being found not guilty of manslaughter and unintentional murder in Dakota County District Court in Hastings. "Tomorrow we will pick up the pieces of our life and try to go on."

Her husband was less charitable.

"The horror of what happened to my family goes on and on," said Jim McClure in an interview before the acquittal was announced. "It was a combination of hysteria [about alleged abuse], a lack of competence at the hospital and a lack of experience with some of the key medical personnel."

The couple said they have declared bankruptcy, and Jim McClure said he lost a lucrative job after Lakeville police caused a scene by arresting him at work. He was never charged.

McClure said his wife was the victim of doctors and police who mistakenly attributed Jessica Li McClure's death to a skull fracture caused by child abuse. The McClures said Jessica's death was caused by a four-foot fall from a kitchen counter on Aug. 17, 1993. The injuries from the fall were exacerbated because she suffered from osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle-bone disease, which also accounted for 14 other hairline fractures found during her autopsy, a defense expert told Judge Leslie Metzen.

The McClures said they did not learn until after her death that Jessica, an orphan whom they adopted from China, had the bone disorder.

After a pediatrician at Minneapolis Children's Medical Center concluded that child abuse had occurred, Lakeville police searched the McClure home and found a barely visible dent in a hallway wall. Investigators theorized that Jessica's mother had bashed the baby's head into the wall, but Jim McClure said the dent was there a month before Jessica's fall and was caused by a neighbor boy who had thrown something.

After a defense medical expert from Scotland testified that Jessica suffered from brittle-bone disease, a first-degree murder indictment was dismissed, and a second grand jury indicted McClure last March on second-degree murder and manslaughter.

"It was a difficult case," said Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom. "There was conflicting medical testimony, and combined with the state's heavy burden of proof, the judge's decision is understandable."

Metzen heard nine state medical experts and three defense doctors during child protection hearings on whether to remove the family's other child from the home. They included Dakota County Coroner John Plunkett, who said the death was accidental, contrary to the opinion of the Hennepin County medical examiner's office. Attorneys for both sides agreed to let Metzen decide the case this week without a trial rather than rehash expert testimony.

Metzen said that both sides presented strong evidence, but the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that McClure killed Jessica. "Reasonable and brilliant scientists' minds do not agree" on what the evidence suggests, Metzen said Thursday.

"You are free to go," the judge concluded, as relief spread across McClure's face and her supporters applauded. She shook as she hugged her husband.

After Jessica's death, county workers removed the couple's 5-year-old daughter from the home for six months. Most of that time she lived in the McClure home with a grandmother while her parents lived with relatives, Jim McClure said. The couple, who have had two more children since Jessica's death, were allowed to visit their daughter several times a week.

McClure said that after he lost his job as director of distribution at St. Paul Book and Stationery, he spent much of his time helping their attorney locate medical experts on brittle-bone disease and finding studies of infants who had died from short-distance falls. The case cost the couple more than $70,000 in legal expenses, McClure said.

McClure said he hopes somehow to better educate state medical experts about accidental child deaths. He said doctors face penalties for not reporting suspected abuse, but no sanction if they mistakenly diagnose child abuse.

"These people shoot from the hip and diagnose child abuse, and then walk away," he said.

Backstrom disagreed. "These are competent, trained medical experts. They are not going to report or not report abuse out of any fear or concern about what is going to happen to them. They base their opinion on their professional experience and judgment."