This is an earlier article.
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_11658258
Doctors testify that child wasn't abused, but sick
By The Associated Press
Posted: 02/08/2009 09:50:54 AM MST
Updated: 02/08/2009 03:38:42 PM MST
DENVER —The trial of a man accused of child abuse in the death of his 11-week-old son will enter its fifth week Monday after a days of testimony by doctors who said the boy had a metabolic disease.
Alex Midyette's trial in Denver is expected to wrap up this week. He faces four counts of child abuse, including one count that he fatally injured his son, Jason. Jason died in March 2006.
Dr. Kathy Keller, who works at Roanoke, Va.-based Pediatric Radiology of America, testified for the defense Friday that Jason did not suffer the 37 broken bones that prosecutors allege. Instead she said that bone abnormalities identified by other doctors as fractures aren't breaks at all, but cartilage that wasn't turning into bone.
She also testified that the abnormalities at the end of Jason's bones are symmetrical on both sides of his body, which indicate a metabolic disease.
"Child abuse is a violent, random act," she said. "When you start seeing symmetry, you have to start looking at things other than trauma. There's no doubt that he was suffering from some sort of metabolic bone disease."
A pediatrician who examined Jason nine days before he began slipping into a coma Feb. 24, 2006, did not notice anything amiss, even though prosecutors said he had already been injured.
Keller said the Midyettes' description that Jason was a sleepy and lethargic baby who did not express pain, was key to her diagnosis.
"That's your first clue that you're dealing not with fractures but with underlying metabolic disease," she said.
Under cross-examination by Boulder Deputy District Attorney Colette Cribari, Keller could not identify a specific metabolic disease. Cribari also noted that Jason did not have symmetrical bone abnormalities in his hands, feet and both sides of his rib cage, which other doctors identified as fractures.
Dr. Patrick Barnes, a pediatric neuroradiologist and child abuse expert at Stanford University, testified Friday that he found signs that Jason's spine and skull hadn't hardened, including several vertebrae that appeared "crushed" or "collapsed."
He also said that lack of bruising and lack of scalp injury, along with old dead areas and clotted blood in Jason's brain, are indications that Jason suffered a disease almost since birth.
He described Jason's skull fracture as a possible "accessory suture," or area where the skull plates meet, that widened after his brain began to swell.
Other doctors called by the defense during the week also testified that Jason wasn't abused but had a metabolic disease.
Midyette's wife, Molly Midyette, was convicted of child abuse in 2007 and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Prosecutors said she didn't seek help for her son in time. She is appealing her conviction.
Earlier in the trial prosecutors presented expert witnesses who testified Jason suffered dozens of broken bones and that doctors tested for metabolic disease, but found none. Prosecution witnesses testified that Alex Midyette mishandled Jason, including carrying him like a football while posing like the Heisman Trophy and dropping him onto Molly Midyette's lap.
Defense attorneys say the Midyettes were concerned, caring parents who took their son to a pediatrician five times out of concern that he wasn't gaining enough weight