Doctor: Williamses starved Hana

Doctor: Williamses starved Hana

Posted: Monday, August 26, 2013 1:15 pm | Updated: 9:07 pm, Mon Aug 26, 2013.

by Gina Cole

MOUNT VERNON — A pediatrician who specializes in child abuse cases testified Monday that Hana Williams was not just malnourished — she was starved.

The “stunning neglect” of Hana led to her starved state, hypothermia and eventual death, Dr. Rebecca Wiester testified. What happened was not an accident but a gradual process that occurred “in the care and supervision of a parent,” she said.

The teenage girl collapsed in her adoptive family’s Sedro-Woolley-area backyard in May 2011, after being outside for hours. An autopsy showed she died of hypothermia hastened by malnutrition.

Her adoptive parents, Larry and Carri Williams, are charged with homicide by abuse and first-degree manslaughter in her death. They also are charged with first-degree assault of a child in connection with alleged abuse of their adopted son, now about age 12. They each have pleaded not guilty.

Wiester reviewed various medical records and reports, as well as transcripts of interviews with some of the Williams children about what went on in the home. She conceded she has never met any member of the Williams family and did not evaluate Hana’s body in person.

The way Hana was treated was “extremely consistent” with other starvation cases Wiester has seen in her work on a child abuse team at Harborview Medical Center and Seattle Children’s Hospital and as a consultant for the state Department of Social and Health Services, she said.

On the stand Monday, Wiester explained the difference between malnutrition and starvation: Malnutrition can result from many things, including a medical problem preventing the body from absorbing nutrients properly, but starvation comes from the intentional deprivation of food.

Multiple witnesses have said that as a form of discipline, the Williamses sometimes deprived their adopted children of meals or served them unappetizing food, including frozen vegetables and sopping-wet sandwiches.

That kind of uncertainty around food leads to children stealing or hoarding it, Wiester said. When the adopted Williams children were caught stealing food, they were punished more, she said.

“It sort of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” she said.

Hana lost 30 pounds, about 28 percent of her body weight, in the year before she died, according to her medical records. Defense attorney Cassie Trueblood asked Wiester if that, along with evidence of her sneaking food, could be attributed to an eating disorder. The doctor said the evidence pointed more strongly to starvation.

At one point, deputy prosecuting attorney Rosemary Kaholokula displayed autopsy photos and asked Wiester to point out signs of starvation on Hana’s body. As image after image of Hana’s body on an examining table came before the jury, Carri Williams dropped her head onto the table in front of her and sobbed.

Several women sitting in the audience behind the prosecutors cried, too, passing around tissues and resting their heads on each other’s shoulders.

Wiester also discussed the symptoms of hypothermia, which include slow, clumsy movements and undressing even though it’s cold out. In her call to 911, Carri Williams said Hana was falling down and taking her clothes off.

The state rested its case after Wiester left the stand. Now, as the trial enters its sixth week, each defendant’s team of attorneys will call more witnesses to support the Williamses’ declaration of innocence.

Larry Williams’ attorneys called former Skagit County Deputy Coroner Robert Clark to testify that the pathologist doing Hana’s autopsy had weighed the girl’s body with a bathroom scale. Prosecutors had no questions for him.

After the jury was dismissed for the day, defense attorneys made a series of motions asking the court to dismiss each charge against their clients, saying there had not been enough evidence for the jury to consider them. Judge Susan Cook disagreed and denied each of those motions.

The defense then asked that each aggravating factor on the manslaughter charge be dismissed. Prosecutors agreed to withdraw one: that the Williamses “demonstrated or displayed an egregious lack of remorse.” Cook denied the rest of the motions.

— Reporter Gina Cole: 360-416-2148, gcole@skagitpublishing.com, Twitter: @Gina_SVH, facebook.com/byGinaCole