A newborn found in a garbage can in the Town of Tonawanda three years ago died after being struck on the head at least twice after being born, two forensic pathologists with the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office have concluded.
There were fractures to two different parts of the baby’s skull, including one crack from the top of the ear to the top of the head, a forensic anthropologist testified last week.
In the basement of an Eggert Road home, Town of Tonawanda paramedic Rachel Kelley made a dreadful discovery. In the early morning of Oct. 5, 2020, she opened the lid of a black garbage can at the bottom of the stairs. Inside of a white plastic bag was a dead newborn baby boy.
But a defense expert for the mother on trial for murder testified Tuesday the head injuries could have been the result of a baby being born into a toilet and subsequently dropped.
“My conclusion is that in my opinion there’s not good evidence to support that the baby was born live and the skull fractures occurred while the baby was alive,” Dr. Jane Turner told the jury.
Andee R. Wright, 32, whose murder trial began in State Supreme Court last week, has been accused of killing the newborn on the morning of Oct. 5, 2020.
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Police and paramedics responded to Wright’s home for a woman in distress that morning. After Wright was taken to Sisters of Charity Hospital, doctors alerted police there might be a baby in the home.
As police and paramedics searched the home, a paramedic found the baby’s body in a garbage can in the basement. Prosecutors have said “Baby Boy Wright” was 38 weeks old when he was born.
A Town of Tonawanda paramedic testified last week about finding the baby’s body and how Wright was initially hesitant to go to the hospital.
Jurors again were shown photos taken by police when the body was found, as well as photos from the autopsy.
Turner, a St. Louis-area consultant, testified that the baby’s body showed signs he died in utero. That included the way blood in the body collected and pooled after death, Turner said.
Andee Wright, 30, was charged with two counts of second-degree murder, in what Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn said during a news conference may be the worst case he's prosecuted in almost five years in office.
Paul G. Dell, defense attorney for Wright, has argued Wright didn’t know she was pregnant and the baby was not born alive.
During questioning by Dell, Turner said it was possible one of the baby’s head injuries came when he initially fell into the toilet, and the second if the baby dropped out of Wright’s hands.
Dell showed the jury medical records from a few days before the death of the baby when Wright visited an urgent care facility for treatment of a skin condition.
Dell argued that if his client was attempting to hide a pregnancy, she wouldn’t likely subject herself to a full body examination where a medical professional could discover she was pregnant.
Prosecutors have attempted to poke holes in Wright’s assertion that she didn’t know she was pregnant in October 2020. They introduced hospital records that showed Wright was pregnant when she went to the hospital in April 2012. When she went back to the hospital in September of that year, she told medical staff she didn’t know if she was pregnant or not. Wright gave birth to a child the following month.
Both Dr. Katherine F. Maloney, deputy chief medical examiner, and Erin Chapman, forensic anthropologist for the department, said they concluded the injuries suffered to the baby’s head were not accidental.
The areas of impact for the blows to the baby’s head were on the forehead and on the side of the head, Chapman told jurors.
Her examination of the skull led her to conclude that a fall is “ruled out pretty easily,” based on two separate impacts. One of the fractures would have required more energy to cause it than your average fall, Chapman testified.
Dr. Stacey Reed, associate chief medical examiner for Erie County, ruled the cause of death was “most consistent with blunt and focally penetrating injuries of the head.”
Wright tested positive for cocaine and opiates at the hospital the morning the baby was found, a doctor testified last week.
Turner, the defense’s expert, in 2018 resigned from her position as a head of a regional forensic pathology agency in Hamilton, Ont., after claiming the province’s chief forensic pathologist interfered with three of her investigations, according to the Hamilton Spectator. Two of the three cases involved baby deaths in which she ruled out abuse, according to the Spectator.
Prosecutors charged Wright with both intentionally killing the baby and showing “depraved indifference to human life.” Wright legally cannot be convicted by the jury of both charges.