Lawyer says medical evidence will show mother didn't kill child

Author: Dennis Cassano; Staff Writer

A defense attorney said Friday that according to medical experts, a 2-year-old child whose mother is accused of murder could not have been shaken to death.

Attorney Steven Meshbesher told a jury in the trial of Janet Ostlund that a ophthalmologist and a neurologist will testify that the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's office was wrong in concluding that Maria Ostlund's brain injury was caused by being shaken to death.

The technical cause of death on the child's death certificate was changed this week. Medical Examiner Garry Peterson could not be reached for comment and Assistant County Attorney John Brink would not comment yesterday.

Ostlund, 33, 4019 Beard Av. N., Robbinsdale, is charged with second-degree murder - unintentionally killing someone during an assault. She and her husband, David, adopted the Salvadoran child in September 1985.

She contends that the child's injury was caused by a fall from a couch on July 14. The child died the next day.

Brink told the jury in his opening statement that the autopsy showed no wounds on the scalp, but a small amount of bleeding on the inside of the skull and "massive swelling" of the brain. He said there also were specks of blood at the back of the eyes, and that those things taken together are evidence that the child was shaken so vigorously that the brain was damaged by her own skull.

He said the medical examiner said that the injury could not have been caused by a fall from a couch.

Meshbesher said the ophthalmologist and neurologist will testify that bleeding occurs at the back of the eyes when a child is shaken to death, but the blood spots occur in a specific pattern. He said that pattern did not exist in Maria, so she could not have been shaken to death.

He said his doctors met with the medical examiners yesterday to discuss the case and that this week the death certificate was changed "to show what my doctors said."

The cause of death given in the original death certificate was "subdural hemorrhage" - bleeding between the brain and its cover, or dura, under the skull.

It was changed to say, "cerebral edema (swelling of the brain) complicated by subdural hemorrhage."

But Brink did not back away from the conclusion that the injury was caused by shaking.

Meshbesher said the neurologist will testify that the child had a previous head injury and that a fall from a couch could have killed her.

Testimony in the trial is to start Monday.