Tre Clay: Solana County, California: (Abusive head trauma); Prosecution's attempt to establish (AHT) comes under attack in infant's death, the Davis Vanguard (Publisher David Greenwald) reports, noting that: "A forensic pathologist who participated in the prosecution’s original neuropathology review of the death of 2½-month-old Elijah Clay testified Friday that the infant’s medical findings are extraordinarily complex and cannot, by themselves, establish abusive head trauma, as the preliminary hearing against Tre Clay continued before Judge Ellis."

BACKGROUND: SBS/AHT: Shaken Baby Syndrome; Abusive Head Trauma: Ground-breaking New Jersey case:  (State V Nieve: November 21, 2025;)  From post of this Blog at the link below: 

QUOTE OF THE DAY: New Jersey Supreme Court:  "[T]he evidence presented at the Frye hearing—including the testimony by the State’s single expert witness—showed that there was no test supporting a finding that humans can produce the physical force necessary to cause the symptoms associated with SBS/AHT in a child. There is evidence of general acceptance by many in the medical community, but the State must also establish general acceptance in the biomechanical community, and it has failed to do so." New Jersey Supreme Court: 

——————————————————————————

SECOND QUOTE OF THE DAY:  New Jersey Supreme Court: "It is therefore evident that the foundation of SBS/AHT lies in biomechanical science and engineering. A scientific community is either relevant or not for purposes of determining admissibility of scientific evidence at trial—degrees of relevance are not weighed. As in Olenowski II, there can certainly be more than one relevant scientific community for purposes of Frye. Here, the relevant scientific communities for purposes of determining the reliability of SBS/AHT expert testimony are both the medical/ pediatric community and the biomechanical engineering community."

https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/606119094459307627

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The hearing follows the defense’s continuing effort to challenge the prosecution’s theory through medical evidence.  A recent report by neurologist Dr. Roland Auer concludes that Elijah Clay’s death involved multiple underlying medical conditions, including prematurity, infection and other physiological abnormalities, and argues those conditions were overlooked in favor of an abusive head trauma diagnosis."

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COMMENTARY:  Prosecutions own neuropathology reviewer testifies medical findings are too complex to confirm abuse in Tre Clay hearing," the Davis Vanguard (Publisher David Greenwald) reports on June 29, 2026. (David Greenwald is the founder, editor, and executive director of the Davis Vanguard. He founded the Vanguard in 2006. David Greenwald moved to Davis in 1996 to attend Graduate School at UC Davis in Political Science. He lives in South Davis with his wife Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald and three children.)

GIST:  "A forensic pathologist who participated in the prosecution’s original neuropathology review of the death of 2½-month-old Elijah Clay testified Friday that the infant’s medical findings are extraordinarily complex and cannot, by themselves, establish abusive head trauma, as the preliminary hearing against Tre Clay continued before Judge Ellis.

Tre Clay appeared in court represented by Deputy Public Defender Jeannette Garcia. Deputy District Attorney Elaine Kuo represented the prosecution.

The defense called Dr. Evan Matshes, chief forensic pathologist and medical director for NAG Forensic, who participated in the original neuropathology review conducted at the request of the Solano County Coroner’s Office. 

Judge Ellis accepted Matshes as an expert in pathology and neuropathology after hearing testimony regarding his education, board certifications and experience.

The case stems from the January 2021 death of Elijah Clay. 

Prosecutors allege the infant died from abusive head trauma, while the defense has challenged that conclusion through multiple expert opinions, including a recent report by neurologist Dr. Roland Auer arguing that Elijah suffered from numerous underlying medical conditions rather than fatal abuse.

Matshes testified that NAG Forensic received Elijah Clay’s brain, eye, cervical spine and spinal cord specimens from the Solano County Coroner’s Office in March 2021.

The examinations were conducted by forensic neuropathologist Dr. Vivian Snyder and underwent an extensive peer-review process because of the complexity of the case. 

Matshes testified that he personally reviewed photographs and microscopic slides as one of several reviewers.

Summarizing the findings from that review, Matshes testified, “In short, that Elijah’s brain was very abnormal, that there was bleeding present, that was old and new, that there was brain pathology that was old and difficult to explain, that there was infection around his brain, the significance of which wasn’t known, that his spine was uninjured and that his eyes were uninjured.”

Garcia questioned Matshes about published recommendations he co-authored regarding infant autopsies.

Asked about the most important principles, Matshes testified, “At a very high level to approach unexpected infant death with an open mind, to be thorough and fact-facing, to document what you see and what you don’t see, and to make those materials available for review.”

Garcia also asked about the ophthalmology findings. Matshes testified there was no evidence of retinal hemorrhages, retinoschisis or macular folds, but cautioned that he does not regard either the presence or absence of those findings as determinative of abuse.

“I’ve written and taught heavily on this subject and consistently testify to my teachings, which is that I do not use the eye hemorrhages to diagnose abuse, nor do I use their absence to say abuse did not happen,” Matshes testified. “So from my school of thought, this is a meaningless finding.”

He also testified that the cervical spine examination showed no injuries.

“The examination that was performed on the cervical spine was thorough and complete by Dr. Snyder. It showed that the spine was not injured, which means that if one was looking for evidence of whiplash such as might occur with shaken or some forms of severe impact, the neck was not injured by such a mechanism,” Matshes testified.

When Garcia asked whether the pathology findings supported a diagnosis of abusive head trauma, Matshes said the neuropathology evidence alone was insufficient to answer that question.

“I don’t have enough information to make that conclusion because that’s well beyond the mandate I was given as a peer reviewer for the neuropathology specimens,” he testified. “We would make the conclusion of abusive head trauma or not abusive head trauma based on much more information.”

Matshes nevertheless emphasized the significance of the spinal findings, stating, “The spine in my school of thought, as I understand pediatric forensic pathology, the normalcy of that spine is of tremendous significance in my practice.”

He further testified that Elijah Clay’s brain pathology was unlike most cases he has encountered.

“And through our group, we see several hundred alleged abusive head trauma cases per year, sometimes 500 or 600 or more,” Matshes testified. “Elijah’s case stands out as an outlier in terms of the underlying complexity of his brain disease. This is a very complex neuropathology.”

Responding to questions from Judge Ellis, Matshes explained that the brain findings could have multiple explanations.

“There are features present that on one hand could be interpreted as physical injury and on the other may entirely be natural disease,” he testified. He added that “all of those possibilities remain on the table because they can’t be resolved by the brain exam.”

Matshes also cautioned against assuming bleeding necessarily indicates trauma.

“We are frequently lulled into a sense of complacency by the presence of blood around the brain because, as humans, we associate blood with trauma, but blood inside the head of a human is also the result sometimes of natural disease,” he testified. “Up to half of babies will be born with subdural hemorrhages just from the act of birth.”

Asked by Judge Ellis about alternative explanations for the pathology, Matshes testified that meningitis and bleeding disorders remained among the possibilities. He also noted that current practice would include genetic testing for bleeding disorders that may produce similar findings in infants.

Garcia asked whether the neuropathology report complicated a straightforward trauma conclusion. Although Matshes noted his group had not been asked to determine the cause of death, he testified, “I would suggest that if someone was thinking this was straightforward trauma, the neuropathology report does not confirm that.”

On cross-examination, Kuo asked Matshes whether he agreed that rapid acceleration and deceleration, commonly referred to as shaking, can cause abusive head trauma and death in infants.

“Agreed strongly,” Matshes testified.

He also reaffirmed that he had not been asked to determine the cause of death in Elijah Clay’s case and that additional information beyond the neuropathology findings would be necessary before offering an opinion on whether abusive head trauma occurred.

Friday’s testimony was notable because the defense called a physician who participated in the prosecution’s original neuropathology review rather than a retained defense expert. 

While Matshes did not offer an opinion on the ultimate cause of death, he repeatedly testified that the neuropathology findings alone could not resolve whether Elijah’s injuries resulted from trauma or underlying disease and described the case as one of the most medically complex infant brain cases he has reviewed.

The hearing follows the defense’s continuing effort to challenge the prosecution’s theory through medical evidence. 

A recent report by neurologist Dr. Roland Auer concludes that Elijah Clay’s death involved multiple underlying medical conditions, including prematurity, infection and other physiological abnormalities, and argues those conditions were overlooked in favor of an abusive head trauma diagnosis."

The entire story can be read at:

https://share.google/JGNYvzT7gJcAP5Tnk

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;

Neonatal Nurse: Lucy Letby: Helen Rumbelow asks the question of the day in her 'Times' story on celebrated UK forensic anthropologist Sue Black's new book 'An Expert witness: Forensic Science on Trial: "Did Lucy Letby have a fair trial?, noting that: "In her analysis the British court system can still be too reliant on expert witnesses arrogantly peddling pseudoscience or lawyers mysteriously failing to seek the advice of the right discipline. She is damning about the trial of the former nurse Lucy Letby. Given its “vague wisps of evidence”, she wonders if the Crown Prosecution Service “should ever have taken the case to court”. She suggests the judge “could have considered dismissing it on the basis of how thin the evidence was”. Lucy Letby witness ‘should have told jury about other explanations’."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "She is further astonished that statisticians were never brought to court by the defence to explain the probability of deaths in an overworked ward of extremely ill babies. Many credible scientists, she writes, question the initial premise of the charges on this analysis. “Why the defence chose the strategy they did is almost unfathomable,” she writes. “The jury did not hear alternatives that would perhaps have better equipped them to make up their minds based on balanced information.”

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STORY: "The macabre world of Sue Black, justice warrior in scrubs," by Helen Rumbelow, published by The Times, on July 10, 2026.  (Helen Rumbelow has been writing for The Times since 1997, starting in the newsroom as health correspondent, then moving to Westminster as political correspondent. She spent time as a commissioning editor on the Comment desk, and has also worked at The Washington Post as a Laurence Stern Fellow.)

SUB-HEADING:  "Did Lucy Letby have a fair trial? In An Expert Witness, the writer and academic is on a mission to improve the standard of forensic science in criminal trials,

GIST: "Let us start with the emerging field of penis identification. Sometimes I feel ashamed of the unwholesome interest I have in Sue Black’s work, but mostly the shame is overwhelmed by my awe for the difference a magnificent human being can make, furthering science for the cause of truth, decency and justice.

Black is one of the world’s most esteemed forensic anthropologists, made a dame for her services to victims and their families in the wake of crimes, conflicts and natural disasters ranging from the Balkan wars to the tsunami in Thailand. Out of gore, she brings nobility.

At 65 she has left her Scottish research post and is a member of the House of Lords and the president of St John’s College, Oxford. To the public she is best known for her books All That Remains and Written in Bone, bestsellers recounting her career. In this third book, An Expert Witness, she writes that when reporters entered the sumptuous palace in Damascus of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad after he fled in 2024, they found a copy of All That Remains on his shelf.

Was Assad training his sights on her? After all, a decade previously Black had been flown to the Middle East to give her expert opinion on a leaked cache of images showing 11,000 men allegedly killed in Assad detention camps. Or was Assad, like so many of us Black fans, Val McDermid, the Scottish crime writer, among the most famous, drawn to the macabre? “I’m not sure,” Black writes, “how I feel about being the bedtime reading of a dictator.” I’m not sure how I feel about being in a book group with Assad.
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But it is Black’s fierce moral mission that makes sense of everything she does. In All That Remains she speculates that this passion for justice came from the “dark and lonely childhood place” of being abused as a girl. This tremendous feeling for the vulnerable flashes through An Expert Witness, which is subtitled Forensic Science on Trial and is part memoir, part history of the fallibility of forensic techniques, like graphology and lie detectors, that have been discarded and the blunders she has seen in 35 years of giving evidence in British and international criminal courtrooms.

In her analysis the British court system can still be too reliant on expert witnesses arrogantly peddling pseudoscience or lawyers mysteriously failing to seek the advice of the right discipline. She is damning about the trial of the former nurse Lucy Letby. Given its “vague wisps of evidence”, she wonders if the Crown Prosecution Service “should ever have taken the case to court”. She suggests the judge “could have considered dismissing it on the basis of how thin the evidence was”. Lucy Letby witness ‘should have told jury about other explanations’

She is further astonished that statisticians were never brought to court by the defence to explain the probability of deaths in an overworked ward of extremely ill babies. Many credible scientists, she writes, question the initial premise of the charges on this analysis. “Why the defence chose the strategy they did is almost unfathomable,” she writes. “The jury did not hear alternatives that would perhaps have better equipped them to make up their minds based on balanced information.”

Black has spent her career trying to rectify this lack of rigour in her indomitable manner, inventing whole new research bases if necessary. This led her to sitting outside a court for hours with a man for whom she was a defence witness after spending considerable time examining photos of his penis.

\He had been charged with sending an indecent image, which he denied. His solicitor sent Black photos of his client’s penis because Black was the pioneer in penis identification research. She proved, for instance, by logging images from a database that, when erect, only 4 per cent of penises deviate to the right (compared with a quarter to the left). This defendant was lucky: the penis in the indecent image had a rare “double dorsal” vein as opposed to the normal single upper-side vein of the defendant. Case closed and an innocent young man walked free, mouthing thank you to Black.

This kind of anecdote seems cheerful enough until you understand why Black had to establish the penis research base: the rise of indecent images of children. In these images, criminals often only show their hands or penis — identify the penis and you have the criminal. In 2022 more than 70,000 cases of sexual abuse against children were reported to the police, “eight cases of abuse every hour”, she writes.Sue Black: I’ve seen pure evil up close, but it’s fine by me if you can’t resist true crime

Black cites as her hero a young girl who went to the police to tell them that her father was abusing her at night. This 2006 case was a “turning point” for Black. In the 19th century there was an epidemic of poisonings that led a scientist called James Marsh to perfect a test for arsenic. Likewise, in the 21st century, Black says, new science was needed by police. Showing “singular bravery”, the girl in this case made a secret video of her abuser that showed only his hands, like so many child sexual abuse images.

Black’s sense of injustice fuelled what would become a lifelong research project into whether vein patterns on hands were robust enough to be used as evidence. Much later, in 2018, she would be part of establishing the largest databases of hand photos (many volunteered as part of citizen science) in the world, using AI to “get to a probability of a million to one” that a suspect and offender are the same person based solely on the look of their hands.

Finally, a breakthrough for victims, and the forces of good. This research has, Black says, secured hundreds of years of prison time for abusers, including life sentences for some of Britain’s most prolific paedophiles.

Most of the first half of this book is Black narrating the history of forensics, in which, thanks to popular fiction from Sherlock Holmes onwards, the public is a little too trusting. She cheered when in the 1980s DNA testing was accidentally discovered by the British scientist Alec Jeffreys, a game-changer that put good science at the heart of the criminal justice system. Much of what came before was hocus-pocus by comparison.

Yet that system is still flawed. The first half of this book is cogently argued, but not classic Black, making it a less compelling read than her first. The book comes to life when Black is at her most outraged. We have the case of a mother whose baby had died in the 1970s. The baby’s coffin felt featherlight and together with other clues this made her suspicious that doctors had stolen her son’s corpse for their research ambitions.

For decades that mother campaigned to expose the practice of doctors retaining baby parts without consent. Forty years on she won the right to exhume her baby’s coffin. Black was brought in, and at first light in the cemetery, indeed found no signs of a body, only an empty blanket neatly rolled up with a crucifix inside. The fact that a fragile blanket was preserved but no teeth nor bones made Black’s expert report pretty conclusive.

Yet the police assembled a team of forensic experts citing all kinds of questionable “science” (the scare quotes are Black’s) to conclude that Black was wrong and a baby had been buried. The police dropped the case. Some years on the mother, by that stage terminally ill in hospital, was visited by NHS officials, who presented her with some slide samples of her son’s tissues, in a supermarket plastic bag.

The case of the girl who captured the hand video? The jury found her father not guilty despite Black showing that the vein pattern on his hands was a match for the video. It was a verdict “so outrageous and so unfair it made me want to scream”. The prosecutor said the jury probably didn’t believe the girl because she didn’t cry giving evidence. “This,” Black writes, “is not justice.” Black fervently wants this woman to make contact with her. Black would let her know that it was her courage that inspired Black to wield new science to save countless souls. This is quite the legacy.

An Expert Witness: Forensic Science on Trial by Sue Black (Doubleday £22 pp400). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members.

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/an-expert-witness-forensic-science-on-trial-sue-black-review-v9gs77d2n?gea_v2=true#

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;

July 10: Diagnosis of a crime: Investigation of a crime series: (Part 3); From our enough to make one weep department: The challenge: "Clinging to hope when your world is kicked out from under you.' Newsroom describes how what began as a grandmother’s fight to help her daughter get back custody of her twins has become a case of medical negligence and broken systems."... "Your mind races and you start to consider and question everything. You look for anything that could possibly explain the ‘injuries’ and then, when you raise those plausible considerations, such as your daughter’s medical history, traumatic labour and the doctors leaving stitches in, you are quickly dismissed. I cannot begin to put into words the level of my frustration in presenting medically reasonable alternatives for consideration and having them ignored. They left stitches in her cervix that prevented her from fully dilating and wondered why her labour wasn’t progressing. Surely those circumstances provided a reasonable explanation worthy of, at the least, consideration. To watch your daughter go through such treatment during labour was one thing but to then be disregarded was another."

DIAGNOSIS OF A CRIME PODCAST: (Episdes): 

https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/04/diagnosis-of-a-crime-melanie-reids-new-podcast-investigation/

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BACKGROUND: "Over the past two years, Melanie Reid and her team have been investigating a series of cases involving allegations of non-accidental injury in babies and young children.  They obtained the medical files, scans and x-rays used to accuse and convict parents and sent them to internationally recognised specialists in radiology, orthopaedics, pathology, genetics, obstetrics and neurology. These experts were asked a simple question: do the medical findings support the conclusions reached by the New Zealand doctors? Time and again, the answer was no. The result has been the investigation of six cases across two podcasts, Fractured and Diagnosis of a Crime, which all raise serious concerns about potential wrongful accusations and convictions."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "However, nothing prepares you for sitting in a meeting and being told by Dr Patrick Kelly, the head paediatrician for Starship’s child protection team, that your grandchildren’s injuries are the result of a “violent assault” and that someone has done this to them. That is what happened when I arrived at Starship after getting on the next available flight to Auckland. That’s when our whole world was kicked out from beneath us."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "As a grandmother my pain is different from my daughter’s – I carry not just my pain but also that of my daughter and my grandchildren. The pain of watching my daughter go through all of this, of seeing her miss out on the joy of motherhood, of having her children placed in foster care and be accused of something she didn’t do. Many days we’ve not quite known what to do and felt the whole world was against us. Other days we experienced small wins which drove us and strengthened our hope. So many firsts have passed us all by and these days were often the toughest: birthdays, first steps, first words, Easter, first Mother’s and Father’s Day, Christmas."

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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Hope sometimes comes from where you least expect it. One of our lawyers recommended listening to Diagnosis of a Crime and within 10 minutes of listening to the Central Otago farmers’ story I thought “that’s us” – the similarities were remarkable. It was a hard listen. On one hand I was relieved to know we weren’t alone, but on the other I felt angry it had happened to others and was continuing to happen. Why us? I decided to reach out to Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner to share my daughter’s story and thank them for giving a voice to these cases. In return they have provided us with some real hope, and some validation in questioning the medical ‘diagnosis’. They have helped us to consider where to look, who to turn to and what questions to ask."

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COMMENTARY: "Clinging to hope when your world is kicked out from under you," by a Newsroom contributor, published on July 5, 2026. (The author (name withheld)  is a mother to five children, and the twins’ grandmother and was born in Auckland but currently lives in Brisbane, Australia. She has nearly 30 years’ experience as a teacher in both countries, specialising in behaviour, disability and trauma-informed teaching practices. She has a master’s degree in inclusive education, worked with countless at-risk and disengaged youth and presented at a national conference for alternative teaching and learning.)

SUB-HEADING: "What began as a grandmother’s fight to help her daughter get back custody of her twins has become a case of medical negligence and broken systems. She tells Newsroom her family’s story."

PHOTO CAPTION: "The author tells Melanie Reid that hope is all she has left."

GIST: "Becoming a parent is one of the greatest joys on this earth, but as the past few years have also taught me, it can also bring life’s toughest challenges. Challenges that have tested not only my personal strength but also my faith in medical and child safety processes.

In 2023 we were gearing up for what should have been a joyous time: the birth of my daughter Hunter’s* first children and my first grandchildren – twin boys. I’d like to say the pregnancy and labour was a nice experience, but in reality, from the beginning it was one challenge after another.

From severe morning sickness and extreme weight loss (hyperemesis gravidarum), to gestational diabetes; threatened early delivery which resulted in cervical cerclage where a doctor stitched her cervix closed; and labour difficulties that lasted two weeks.

At 34 weeks one of the twin’s waters broke and Hunter began infrequent contractions. Doctors said they removed the cerclage stitches, put her on antibiotics, and monitored the twins for about three days before sending her home with a plan to induce her at 37 weeks.

At almost 36 weeks she went into full-blown labour and went back to hospital. Despite the midwife saying she could feel one of the twin’s head and hair, my daughter wouldn’t dilate past 5cm. They gave her multiple doses of the labour-inducing drug oxytocin. After 15 hours of labour with no progression, she was finally sent for an emergency c-section. However, as they were testing to make sure she was numb, she could still feel everything. She was told they couldn’t give her any more numbing medication and had to carry on with the c-section, so she felt the entire procedure.

The twins’ delivery didn’t end our challenges. While Hunter was recovering, a doctor lifted her blankets and discovered a pool of blood under her. Hunter had a postpartum haemorrhage that saw her lose 2.3 litres of blood and need emergency surgery. It was very soon discovered that doctors had not removed all the stitches in her cervix from the cerclage, which had prevented her from dilating, and the labour from progressing normally.

Meantime, because the twins had breathing problems and jaundice they stayed in Waikato Hospital’s NICU for one week and then a room on another ward for two more weeks. Hunter was then able to bring her babies home (with instructions to give the boys high-dose vitamin D drops every day for a year), and I returned to Australia where I live.

But if we’d thought the past nine months had been difficult, they were nothing compared to what we were about to face. When the twins were eight-weeks-old, my daughter Facetimed me as something wasn’t right with one of them. After a brief discussion I recommended she take him to hospital, where things escalated very quickly and our nightmare began. It was established they were having seizures and within hours the babies were airlifted to Starship Hospital for emergency brain surgery and subsequently placed in induced comas.

So, with the babies en route to Starship, my daughter, by now distraught, rushed home to pack so she and her partner could drive north to Auckland to be with the babies. By now the early hours of the morning, there was a heavy knock on the door. It was two police detectives who had been called by Waikato Hospital, and there and then, the abuse allegations began.

For four hours she and her partner were questioned – all this while she had no idea if her babies were dead or alive. Finally, at around 7am, she was allowed to leave for Starship. When she arrived, she was told the twins had injuries that were so severe that one of them may potentially not survive. They were each diagnosed with subdural bleeding and a skull fracture – one twin had his on the left side, the other on his right side.

As a grandparent – well, as anyone really – we assume that doctors, medical professionals and hospitals know what they are doing and we blindly place our trust and faith in them. Even when little red flags start to appear we tell ourselves they know what they are doing and everything will be alright. Those red flags began appearing while my daughter started her labour two weeks before the twins were born and continued when the twins were in NICU and beyond. Everything we raised was explained away. For example, when one of the twins’ heads was getting bigger in those first weeks at home, this was explained away by “normal” growth; a lack of crying while in NICU was explained away as he’s “just the quiet twin and his brother is the noisy one”. However, nothing prepares you for sitting in a meeting and being told by Dr Patrick Kelly, the head paediatrician for Starship’s child protection team, that your grandchildren’s injuries are the result of a “violent assault” and that someone has done this to them. That is what happened when I arrived at Starship after getting on the next available flight to Auckland. That’s when our whole world was kicked out from beneath us.

Your mind races and you start to consider and question everything. You look for anything that could possibly explain the ‘injuries’ and then, when you raise those plausible considerations, such as your daughter’s medical history, traumatic labour and the doctors leaving stitches in, you are quickly dismissed.

I cannot begin to put into words the level of my frustration in presenting medically reasonable alternatives for consideration and having them ignored. They left stitches in her cervix that prevented her from fully dilating and wondered why her labour wasn’t progressing. Surely those circumstances provided a reasonable explanation worthy of, at the least, consideration. To watch your daughter go through such treatment during labour was one thing but to then be disregarded was another.

We are all brought up to respect doctors, to hold them up on some pedestal. That in times of pain a doctor will help and heal, and yet in the case of my daughter and grandsons, Dr Patrick Kelly has created more pain and harm than any one person should ever know.

A pain that will never go away.

But it got worse.

No police prosecution has ever eventuated, but after surgery and being taken out of their induced coma, at 3.5 months old and the day after Hunter’s birthday, the twins were discharged from hospital directly into Oranga Tamariki custody and put into a foster home. Oranga Tamariki would not allow them to live with me because I live in Australia.

Ever since they were taken two years ago, the boys have lived in four foster homes, none of them family. My daughter gets to have a supervised visit with her sons once every three weeks.

As a grandmother my pain is different from my daughter’s – I carry not just my pain but also that of my daughter and my grandchildren. The pain of watching my daughter go through all of this, of seeing her miss out on the joy of motherhood, of having her children placed in foster care and be accused of something she didn’t do. Many days we’ve not quite known what to do and felt the whole world was against us. Other days we experienced small wins which drove us and strengthened our hope. So many firsts have passed us all by and these days were often the toughest: birthdays, first steps, first words, Easter, first Mother’s and Father’s Day, Christmas.

For over two years our lives have been on hold due to the failure of a system that places so much power in the hands of one person. Every minute of every day has been all about getting the twins back and proving the injuries were not caused by someone, as claimed by Dr Kelly, but by which seem quite obviously to be birth related, “medical misadventure” (it’s difficult to deliver babies when your cervix is still partially stitched closed), and matching left and right head fractures – a clear series of events that can be explained. But no one wanted to listen.

We continue to argue to the authorities that this is a clear case of medical misadventure, and for the twins’ return.

Hope is what gets you through those tough days; the days when you wish you could crawl into a ball and escape the world; the days when you wish for it all to be over.

Hope changes over time.

In the beginning it’s hope that the twins will wake from their comas, that they will be able to be moved out of NICU, that they will be able to eat, walk, laugh and do things that a normal infant can do. (Despite Dr Kelly’s warnings that they would both have “severe and permanent disability”, the boys are meeting all their milestones.) Then that turns to hope you can see them more, get them back; hope that one day I can take them to the zoo, celebrate Christmas together. Hope that we can one day be a family and put these events behind us.

Hope sometimes comes from where you least expect it. One of our lawyers recommended listening to Diagnosis of a Crime and within 10 minutes of listening to the Central Otago farmers’ story I thought “that’s us” – the similarities were remarkable. It was a hard listen. On one hand I was relieved to know we weren’t alone, but on the other I felt angry it had happened to others and was continuing to happen. Why us? I decided to reach out to Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner to share my daughter’s story and thank them for giving a voice to these cases. In return they have provided us with some real hope, and some validation in questioning the medical ‘diagnosis’. They have helped us to consider where to look, who to turn to and what questions to ask.

My hope is that truth will prevail. You have to trust that it will. Hope that something will change and that this will never be allowed to happen to another family. Hope that some good comes from all of this. That processes are put in place that prevent one person from wielding so much power over people’s lives and that families have other options available to them to seek answers rather than lengthy and costly legal battles.

These days hope is all that I have, and I hold onto it with whatever I have left.

*Not her real name

The entire commentary can be read at:

https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/07/06/clinging-to-hope-when-your-world-is-kicked-out-from-under-you/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;

Brian Peixoto: Massachusetts: Flawed medical testimony: On May 26, a judge overturned his nearly 30-year-old murder conviction finding that new medical science provides a different, plausible theory of how his then girlfriend three-year-old son died, raising the question whether a murder had actually occurred. Will he be granted bail? Reporter Andrew Quemere. Massdump..."At a March 1997 trial, a Bristol County prosecutor accused Peixoto of murdering three-year-old Christopher Affonso, Jr. The prosecutor argued that shortly before Affonso’s death, Peixoto assaulted the boy in a fit of rage after he wet himself in Peixoto’s Westport apartment. The prosecutor presented jurors with a lurid story in which Peixoto tortured the child by pinching his penis then grabbed him by his arms and slammed his head on a hard surface eight times, causing a six-inch fracture at the base of his skull and killing him almost immediately. But on May 26, now-retired Plymouth County Superior Court Justice Daniel O’Shea overturned Peixoto’s murder conviction, finding that new medical science provides a different, plausible theory of how Affonso died. In an 80-page decision, O’Shea said Peixoto is entitled to a new trial because studies from 2016 and 2022 show that children can sustain fractures at the base of the skull from short falls and that such fractures do not necessarily result in immediate loss of consciousness or death. The research, O’Shea said, contradicts the prosecution’s claim that Affonso’s injury could have only resulted from a violent assault shortly before he died.

BACKGROUND: "Brian Peixoto’s murder conviction was overturned by a Massachusetts judge in May but another judge is refusing to allow Peixoto to be released on bail while prosecutors appeal the ruling or decide to retry him. Peixoto has spent the past 29 years behind bars. His conviction was overturned based on flawed medical testimony.

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "About 10 days before Affonso’s death, the boy fell down the stairs at his grandmother’s house when Peixoto wasn’t present, hit his head, and fractured his clavicle, which Peixoto’s lawyers have pointed to as a possible alternative explanation for the skull fracture."

--------------------------------------

PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Peixoto’s lawyers say in court records that the prosecution’s theory of how Affonso died is “completely wrong.” They argue that Affonso died from complications of a rare condition called post-traumatic diabetes insipidus (PTDI), which is associated with the type of skull fracture the boy sustained and would have taken days to cause his death rather than killing him immediately. PTDI is a condition that occurs when there is damage to the part of the brain that secretes the hormone that tells the kidneys to retain water. The lawyers have cited lab-test results that showed Affonso’s sodium level was extremely elevated at the time of his death and evidence that he was dehydrated to support their theory."

---------------------------------------

STORY: "Man Whose Three-Decade-Old Murder Conviction Was Overturned Still Fighting to Be Released from Custody," by Andrew Quemere, published by Massdump, on July 8, 2026. (Andrew Quemere is an independent investigative journalist from Massachusetts. He writes about issues like wrongful convictions, police misconduct, and government transparency. He is the author of The Mass Dump newsletter.)

SUB-HEADING: "Brian Peixoto’s murder conviction was overturned. Now he’s appealing after a judge ordered him held without bail while he continues fighting to clear his name.

SUB-HEADING: "A Massachusetts man whose nearly 30-year-old murder conviction was thrown out in May is asking a justice of the state’s highest court to release him from jail after a lower-court judge ordered him held without bail—a decision his attorneys say could keep him behind bars for years while he continues fighting to clear his name.

GIST: "The judge who denied bail to Brian Peixoto did not adequately consider how the case against the former Westport man has weakened in light of new evidence or the extensive information showing he is not a flight risk, according to a brief his attorneys filed with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on July 6.

In January 1996, Peixoto was charged with killing his then-girlfriend’s three-year-old son; a jury convicted him of first-degree murder the following year. But in May, a judge overturned Peixoto’s conviction and vacated his life sentence, finding that new scientific evidence calls the prosecution’s theory of how the child died into question. A different judge denied bail in a ruling on July 1, writing that “the Commonwealth still has a viable case” and Peixoto poses a flight risk. Defense attorneys have since asked a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court to overturn the bail decision and free Peixoto.

The appeal is being reviewed by Supreme Judicial Court Justice Frank Gaziano, according to court records.

Separately, the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office in June filed a notice of its intent to appeal the decision that overturned Peixoto’s conviction, court records say. Prosecutors also have the option to retry Peixoto on the murder charge.

“It is the Commonwealth’s position … that the defendant should remain in custody,” said Bristol County Deputy District Attorney Jennifer St. Laurent Sowa.

Prosecutors have not yet filed a brief in the appeal related to Peixoto’s denial of bail, court records show.

According to the bail decision by Bristol County Superior Court Justice Raffi Yessayan, Peixoto “still faces prosecution for the alleged violent death of a small child and a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. … The defendant, therefore, still has a major incentive to flee to evade prosecution and to avoid the prospect of returning to prison.”

Peixoto’s lawyers say in their brief that their client “has been fighting for decades” to expose flaws in the medical evidence prosecutors used to secure his conviction and “thus has every incentive to return to court to see the case through to its completion and ensure that he is fully vindicated.”

Peixoto was 29 when he was charged with murder and has consistently maintained his innocence. In June, he turned 57 in jail while awaiting Yessayan’s bail ruling.

At a March 1997 trial, a Bristol County prosecutor accused Peixoto of murdering three-year-old Christopher Affonso, Jr. The prosecutor argued that shortly before Affonso’s death, Peixoto assaulted the boy in a fit of rage after he wet himself in Peixoto’s Westport apartment. The prosecutor presented jurors with a lurid story in which Peixoto tortured the child by pinching his penis then grabbed him by his arms and slammed his head on a hard surface eight times, causing a six-inch fracture at the base of his skull and killing him almost immediately.

But on May 26, now-retired Plymouth County Superior Court Justice Daniel O’Shea overturned Peixoto’s murder conviction, finding that new medical science provides a different, plausible theory of how Affonso died. In an 80-page decision, O’Shea said Peixoto is entitled to a new trial because studies from 2016 and 2022 show that children can sustain fractures at the base of the skull from short falls and that such fractures do not necessarily result in immediate loss of consciousness or death. The research, O’Shea said, contradicts the prosecution’s claim that Affonso’s injury could have only resulted from a violent assault shortly before he died.

About 10 days before Affonso’s death, the boy fell down the stairs at his grandmother’s house when Peixoto wasn’t present, hit his head, and fractured his clavicle, which Peixoto’s lawyers have pointed to as a possible alternative explanation for the skull fracture.

No one witnessed the alleged assault on Affonso the evening he was found collapsed in Peixoto’s Westport apartment. Affonso’s mother initially told investigators that she and Peixoto were both upstairs when her four-year-old daughter got their attention and said the boy was vomiting and banging his head in the basement. The mother said she and Peixoto then went downstairs at the same time to check on Affonso.

But after police showed the mother autopsy photos of her son’s injuries and challenged her account, she changed her story and said that Peixoto went downstairs first and she heard loud banging while she was still upstairs.

Peixoto appeared before Yessayan for a bail hearing at the Fall River Justice Center on June 4, prior to the judge’s ruling. Peixoto’s daughter, Amber Peixoto, his father, Joseph Peixoto, his sister, Brenda Peixoto-Aguiar, and other family members, friends, and supporters filled up the benches inside the courtroom at the time.

Brian Peixoto stood behind a glass enclosure on the side of the courtroom, his hands cuffed in front of him. He had a gray crew cut and goatee, and he wore a pair of bifocals, a chain necklace, and a t-shirt. A tattoo that said “AMBER’S DADDY” was visible on his right arm.

At the hearing, Bristol County Assistant District Attorney Dennis Collins said that “the defense in this case relies on creating an alternate timeline” that is inconsistent with the evidence presented at trial.

“The timeline requires that a short fall could cause a six-inch, linear, bilateral skull fracture from ear to ear across the base of the skull behind the brainstem, the thickest part of the skull, in a three-year-old child,” Collins said.

According to the prosecutor, neither study cited by the defense showed that a child had sustained the exact same type of fracture as Affonso.

In the bail decision, Yessayan wrote that he “considered that following [Peixoto’s] 1997 conviction, the defendant has had numerous achievements while incarcerated over the past 30 years.”

“He has been a positive community member in the prison system and has shown himself to be a leader and mentor,” the judge wrote. “He has provided the court with many letters of support attesting to his good character and strong family support. He also had a good number of people appear at the hearing on this motion to show they would support the defendant with housing, structure, support and work opportunities should he be released.”

Yessayan also acknowledged that “a new trial [would] feature a so-called battle of the experts.” However, he concluded that the prosecution “still has a very strong case against the defendant.”

Peixoto is represented by Jennifer Fitzgerald, Lisa Kavanaugh, and Jack Cunha. Kavanaugh is the director of the Innocence Program at the state’s public defender agency, the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS).

Peixoto’s lawyers say in court records that the prosecution’s theory of how Affonso died is “completely wrong.” They argue that Affonso died from complications of a rare condition called post-traumatic diabetes insipidus (PTDI), which is associated with the type of skull fracture the boy sustained and would have taken days to cause his death rather than killing him immediately.

PTDI is a condition that occurs when there is damage to the part of the brain that secretes the hormone that tells the kidneys to retain water. The lawyers have cited lab-test results that showed Affonso’s sodium level was extremely elevated at the time of his death and evidence that he was dehydrated to support their theory.

Peixoto’s lawyers say in their July 6 brief that Yessayan’s bail decision failed to address how new evidence presented at a post-conviction hearing in 2025 and 2026 “contradicted nearly every aspect of the Commonwealth’s evidence from the original trial.”

“A retrial will not be just a variation of the who-done-it strategy employed at trial,” the attorneys write. “Rather, it will directly put into question whether [Affonso’s] death was the result of a homicide at all.”

At trial, the prosecution relied on expert testimony from a pediatrician who claimed that the impact to Affonso’s skull from the alleged assault crushed his brain and would have rendered him comatose almost immediately. However, prosecutors now acknowledge that no crushing injury occurred and would need to convince a jury that the boy was killed by a “fatal but invisible brain injury,” Peixoto’s attorneys write.

Prosecutors have also not been able to explain Affonso’s elevated sodium level or neurological symptoms he was displaying for several days prior to his death, the attorneys write.

According to Peixoto’s attorneys, “all of the other traditional bail factors—with the exception of the bare fact that he is charged with first degree murder—strongly militate in favor of release.”

Peixoto grew up in Westport, “has extensive family and community ties to Massachusetts,” and would live with his father and father’s long-term partner if granted bail, his attorneys say. He also arranged to be hired for a full-time job with an insulation-installation company in the event that he’s released.

“While incarcerated,” the attorneys say, “Mr. Peixoto led an exemplary life, seeking out educational, employment, and programmatic opportunities and earning the trust of prison leaders through his exemplary disciplinary record.”

Peixoto has no other criminal convictions and had only five disciplinary reports while incarcerated, the last of which occurred 12 years ago, according to his attorneys.

While incarcerated, Peixoto obtained his GED in 2000 and graduated magna cum laude from Boston University with a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies in 2025, his attorneys say. Peixoto also trained service dogs for the organization NEADS.

Peixoto organized two Walks for Innocence at MCI Norfolk, the last state prison where he was incarcerated, one in 2024 and another in 2025. Several people from outside the prison, including Kavanaugh, were allowed to participate, which required the approval of the Massachusetts Department of Correction and the leadership of MCI Norfolk, Peixoto’s attorneys say.

“His involvement in these events speaks volumes to his character and to the degree of responsibility and trust that he earned within the institution,” the attorneys write.

As a client of the CPCS Innocence Program, Peixoto would be provided with licensed social workers and mental health counselors who specialize in the reentry process if he is released, according to his attorneys.

Peixoto and his family would also receive help from the Exoneree Network, a group that supports people whose convictions have been overturned in Massachusetts. The assistance would include “financial literacy support, professional psychological and emotional support, and the support of the entire Exoneree Community,” his attorneys write.

One hour after his conviction was overturned, Peixoto was transferred from MCI Norfolk to a county jail, according to his attorneys. The abrupt move has meant that Peixoto no longer has regular contact with his family. It also meant that Carly, the service dog he was training for NEADS, had to be reassigned on an emergency basis to another trainer.

Peixoto has already served about 30 years in prison and, if not granted bail, will likely be incarcerated for several more years while prosecutors appeal the decision overturning his conviction and decide whether to retry him, which his attorneys say weighs in favor of his release.

“Mr. Peixoto is also deeply committed to clearing his own name,” his attorneys write. “Given how diligently Mr. Peixoto has worked toward finally securing his day in court as afforded by the granting of this motion for new trial, it is evidence that he will be wholeheartedly committed to attending all upcoming court dates.”June 4.""

The entire story can be read at:

https://massdump.ghost.io/brian-peixoto-bail-denied/?utm_source=TMP-Newsletter&utm_campaign=852196065f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_07_09_10_44&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5e02cdad9d-852196065f-174331221

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;

July 9: Diagnosis of a crime series: Investigation of the day. (Part 2); Newsroom reports that New Zealand juries have long heard that unexplained rib fractures in infants are highly indicative of abuse - but in a recent Dunedin criminal trial, a Harvard-trained radiologist told jurors the science underpinning these diagnoses is facing growing international scrutiny. "'However, a recent criminal trial in Dunedin has raised serious questions about the validity of this practice and whether some parents are being wrongly accused and sometimes convicted of harming their infants when other medical causes for the injuries are being overlooked. In this case, covered extensively in the latest season of Newsroom podcast Diagnosis of a Crime, a young father and professional athlete was accused of causing multiple rib fractures to his four-week old son."

DIAGNOSIS OF A CRIME PODCAST: (Episdes): 

https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/04/diagnosis-of-a-crime-melanie-reids-new-podcast-investigation/

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Paediatricians were diagnosing abuse based on literature and data considered the gold standard, but there actually was no gold standard, she said.  “The physicians, if they think it’s abuse, that’s the true positive. That’s the gold standard. Well, that’s not science. It’s opinion.”

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY:  "Over the past two years, Melanie Reid and her team have been investigating a series of cases involving allegations of non-accidental injury in babies and young children.  They obtained the medical files, scans and x-rays used to accuse and convict parents and sent them to internationally recognised specialists in radiology, orthopaedics, pathology, genetics, obstetrics and neurology. These experts were asked a simple question: do the medical findings support the conclusions reached by the New Zealand doctors? Time and again, the answer was no. The result has been the investigation of six cases across two podcasts, Fractured and Diagnosis of a Crime, which all raise serious concerns about potential wrongful accusations and convictions."

------------------------------------------

STORY: "If we think it’s abuse, it’s abuse,’ by News Director Cass Mason, published by Newsroom, on July 5, 2026.

SUB-HEADING: "NZ juries have long heard that unexplained rib fractures in infants are highly indicative of abuse. But in a recent Dunedin criminal trial, a Harvard-trained radiologist told jurors the science underpinning these diagnoses is facing growing international scrutiny."

GIST: "Since at least the 1990s, the idea that certain unexplained injuries in infants are “highly indicative” of abuse has been standard practice in hospital child protection units, including Starship Hospital’s Te Puaruruhau.

However, a recent criminal trial in Dunedin has raised serious questions about the validity of this practice and whether some parents are being wrongly accused and sometimes convicted of harming their infants when other medical causes for the injuries are being overlooked.

In this case, covered extensively in the latest season of Newsroom podcast Diagnosis of a Crime, a young father and professional athlete was accused of causing multiple rib fractures to his four-week old son.

‘If we think it’s abuse, it’s abuse’

Following reports from doctors at Dunedin Hospital and Starship, police concluded the baby’s rib fractures were found to be the result of abuse from “someone known to him” – a finding that led to his parents being placed under supervision and the pro athlete facing charges.

During the father’s three-week trial, the jury heard from three American expert witnesses. One of them, Harvard trained radiologist Dr Julie Mack, explained how there was no gold standard when it came to doctors diagnosing crimes.

Mack is an assistant professor of radiology at Penn State University, is board certified in paediatric radiology and has co-authored dozens of studies.

Testifying for the defence, Mack said the fractures could be explained by normal stresses acting on bones affected by the baby’s severe vitamin D deficiency, a factor that was dismissed by the New Zealand doctors.

She highlighted major flaws in the scientific literature and medical reasoning behind the non-accidental injury diagnosis.
That’s not science, it’s opinion

Part of assessing bone fragility in infants is for radiologists to read and interpret x-rays and CT scans.

However, Mack says radiographic imaging cannot determine whether bones are weak or of normal strength.
The pro athlete and his son, whose fractures were found by Dunedin doctors to have been ‘non-accidental’ and caused by abuse.

Of the baby in this case, she told the court: “There is little or no dispute over what the imaging shows, and relatively little dispute over timing [of when the fractures became evident on imaging] … the disagreement is over the limitations of imaging strength of the bone. In fact, imaging has a very limited ability to identify bone strength.”

The court heard how 20-40 percent of bone strength needs to be lost before it becomes evident on x-rays.

Mack said doctors diagnosing non-accidental injury often used a flawed methodology affected by confirmation bias and circular reasoning, leading them to conclude: “If we think it’s abuse, it’s abuse, because we can’t find anything else.”

Much of this stems from a lack of reliable data – no gold standard against which diagnoses can be tested, and no feedback loop to ensure cases initially suspected as child abuse are corrected in hospital records when those allegations are later not substantiated. This skews estimates of how frequently rib fractures in infants are actually caused by non-accidental injury.

In a report prepared ahead of her testimony, Mack referred to the ‘positive predictive value’ equation – the probability a positive result means a patient has the condition. So, in this case, if an infant has unexplained rib fractures, how likely is it that they were caused by abuse.

Scientific literature often assumes the fractures are a ‘true positive’ (caused by abuse) in the absence of an explanation based on a known diagnosis of weak bones or significant accidental trauma, she wrote.

This means many infants will be referred to social services for further investigation. However, because the ‘false positives’ (those with fractures found not to have been caused by abuse) are not recorded alongside the ‘true positives’, there is no way to reliably calculate the probability of rib fractures occurring for non-abusive reasons.

“The probability of abuse is based on a lack of ability to identify false positives … false positives automatically update to true positives,” Mack later told the court.

Paediatricians were diagnosing abuse based on literature and data considered the gold standard, but there actually was no gold standard, she said.

“The physicians, if they think it’s abuse, that’s the true positive. That’s the gold standard. Well, that’s not science. It’s opinion.”

She said in order to truly understand, for example, the effects of severe vitamin D deficiency on infants’ bones, studies would need to be conducted in conjunction with pathology.

“So autopsy studies where if they think there’s a fracture versus rickets at the end of a rib, they need to go in and look at those and then we need a lot more of those studies. I actually think, to get good at it, the whole specialty has to move in that direction, really re-look at what we can and can’t say on imaging for rickets compared to pathology.”

(Rickets is a condition of weakened bones in infants and children caused by severely low vitamin D levels.)

During her testimony, Mack offered to send more recent medical literature about infant fractures to some of the New Zealand medical experts who testified in this case.

She pointed to the 2021 study out of Harris County, Texas, ‘The frequency and pattern of CPR-related fractures in an infant autopsy sample’, in which the authors studied the cases of 387 children younger than 12 months who had died of diseases that weren’t traumatic.

Mack had always been taught that posterior rib fractures from CPR in infants were extremely rare. But the study showed what she had been taught wasn’t right, and that fractures from CPR were much more common.

“It’s an important study because it’s teaching us – as we should be taught – that our understanding of medicine, always, is incomplete.”

The role of physicians was to ask questions, she said. Dr Julie Mack suggested some of the NZ doctors who gave evidence at the Dunedin trial could benefit by reading some of the more recent medical literature. Photo: The Cato Institute

Starship radiologist Dr Russell Metcalfe gave evidence for the prosecution that in his experience he had never seen posterior rib fractures from CPR.

Mack responded: “So I would refer him to this study [from Harris County] because his personal experience is not science.”

In court, Metcalfe gave evidence that the pro athlete had squeezed his baby, causing the fractures.

However, there are other potential causes – in this baby’s case, Mack gave evidence that his severely low vitamin D levels could have contributed to potential microscopic fractures that weren’t visible on x-ray, but that over time progressed to fractures.

The jury heard how more fractures appeared after the baby had been admitted to hospital while he was under 24-hour watch.
Settled science?

A 2011 study tested the assumption that bone mineralisation could be assessed by visual appearance, and found that only 28 percent of patients with severe bone fragility were accurately identified by visually examining the x-rays.

Some studies have reported that between 80-95 percent of unexplained rib fractures in infants are associated with abuse.

“The problems with percentages are important because we do have diseases where there is a gold standard [like] cancer under the microscope. They see the pattern and that’s the gold standard. So if I see an x-ray that looks like cancer, I can track ‘was I right or wrong’, and I have the gold standard to compare it to. There is no gold standard in this,” Mack said.

The “circular inference” reasoning being used to diagnose rib fractures in the infant population is one of the reasons the positive predictive value is incorrectly reported as being so high, Mack says. Crown prosecutor Richard Smith gives his opening address at the trial, which went on to last three weeks.

Circular inference occurs when the conclusion is built into the evidence used to support that conclusion. In this context, fractures may be classified as abuse because they fit patterns seen in previous abuse cases, while those same patterns were originally identified from cases already classified as abuse.

When the evidence and the diagnosis effectively validate each other, estimates of diagnostic accuracy can become inflated and doctors may be less likely to consider alternative explanations.

In proposing the baby’s fractures could be related to bone strength that’s weaker than normal, Mack also discussed the difference between abnormal force on normal bone (car accidents, serious falls) versus normal force on abnormal bone (the day-to-day handling on bones weakened by very low levels of vitamin D and the more fragile nature of infant skeletons).

She found that the evidence supported the latter given the baby’s well-documented severe vitamin D deficiency, lack of any external bruising or injury to the underlying organs and young age. This didn’t mean that trauma wasn’t involved, Mack said, but that the trauma may have been “normal repetitive forces on abnormal bone rather than application of a large abnormal force on normal bone” – in other words, stress related.

“The strength of the bone is dependent on multiple factors including the shape and size of the bone, the quality of the collagen that makes up the bone and the adequacy of mineralisation in assessing bone fragility.”

Diagnosis of a crime

Over the past two years, Melanie Reid and her team have been investigating a series of cases involving allegations of non-accidental injury in babies and young children.

They obtained the medical files, scans and x-rays used to accuse and convict parents and sent them to internationally recognised specialists in radiology, orthopaedics, pathology, genetics, obstetrics and neurology.

These experts were asked a simple question: do the medical findings support the conclusions reached by the New Zealand doctors? Time and again, the answer was no.

The result has been the investigation of six cases across two podcasts, Fractured and Diagnosis of a Crime, which all raise serious concerns about potential wrongful accusations and convictions.

To hear more about this issue, you can listen to both seasons of Fractured and both seasons of Diagnosis of a Crime by searching for our channel Delve on Spotify, Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts."

The entire story can be read at:

if-we-think-its-abuse-its-abuse

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;

July 8: Carrody Buchhorn; Kansas: A discredited Coroner Erik Mitchell case: Major (Welcome) Development): A judge ruled Monday that the only credible explanation of a Eudora infant’s death is natural disease, and the woman wrongfully convicted of murdering him is innocent. As Mackenzie Clark reports in The Lawrence Times, "Despite prosecutors’ assertion that a forensic pathologist’s report “didn’t make sense,” Carrody Buchhorn, now 51, will be awarded $368,982 for the 2,072 days she was imprisoned, Douglas County District Judge James McCabria wrote in his decision. A jury in 2018 found Buchhorn guilty of reckless second-degree murder of a 9-month-old boy who had been in her care at a Eudora daycare almost 10 years ago on Sept. 29, 2016."

PASSAGE ONE  OF THE DAY: "A jury in 2018 found Buchhorn guilty of reckless second-degree murder of a 9-month-old boy who had been in her care at a Eudora daycare almost 10 years ago on Sept. 29, 2016. The Kansas Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in April 2021 largely because Buchhorn’s trial attorneys had failed to challenge coroner Dr. Erik Mitchell‘s theory of how the boy died, which top pediatric neurologists called “absolutely false,” “made up” and “fantastical.”

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Former Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez’s office continued to prosecute the case, however, until a judge dismissed it in December 2022 because prosecutors had failed to seek a new expert opinion in time. The DA’s office pledged to appeal the dismissal but announced in January 2023 that their new expert pathologist, Dr. Jane Turner, had found that the boy had died from a heart defect and other natural conditions. The DA’s office’s press release at the time stated that they did not have sufficient evidence to continue prosecution. (Read more background on the case at the links below this article.) Altogether, Buchhorn spent more than 5 1/2 years in custody of the Douglas County jail, Topeka prison and on house arrest before her case was dismissed."

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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: “As to the dismissal of the charges being the result of actual innocence, the Court finds that Ms. Buchhorn has met her burden,” McCabria wrote.  “The State’s only argument against such a finding is that Suzanne Valdez   (Former Douglas County District Attorney)  says she believes Ms. Buchhorn is guilty. This statement is entitled to no deference from this Court on the facts presented.” In addition, “this Court finds the opinion of Suzanne Valdez as to the innocence or guilt of Carrody Buchhorn so lacking in legal and factual understanding of the evidence as to merit no weight whatsoever,” McCabria wrote.  Valdez had testified that she found Turner’s report to be “wonky.”

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PARAGRAPH FOUR OF THE DAY: "Buchhorn admitted during the bench trial in the wrongful conviction case that she’d sent “horrible” text messages, including that “I’m going to kill a baby today” and “I’m in hell,” and that the boy was being “an asshole,” in August 2016, prior to his death. Her family members testified that she used the phrase that she was “going to kill” someone frequently as an expression of frustration, but none had seen her yell at or behave violently toward a child. McCabria wrote that the messages were wildly immature, dramatic, distasteful and, in the context of the boy’s death, “alarming and cause for suspicion and investigation.  “But, in the context of all the other evidence, and as contradicted by objective, forensic evidence, not persuasive evidence of murder,” he wrote. "

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STORY: "Judge rules Lawrence woman was wrongfully convicted in infant’s death, and state owes her $369K," by Reporter Mackenzie Clark, published by The Lawrence Times, on July 6, 2026.

GIST: "A Douglas County judge ruled Monday that the only credible explanation of a Eudora infant’s death is natural disease, and the woman wrongfully convicted of murdering him is innocent. 

Despite prosecutors’ assertion that a forensic pathologist’s report “didn’t make sense,” Carrody Buchhorn, now 51, will be awarded $368,982 for the 2,072 days she was imprisoned, Douglas County District Judge James McCabria wrote in his decision. 

A jury in 2018 found Buchhorn guilty of reckless second-degree murder of a 9-month-old boy who had been in her care at a Eudora daycare almost 10 years ago on Sept. 29, 2016. 

The Kansas Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in April 2021 largely because Buchhorn’s trial attorneys had failed to challenge coroner Dr. Erik Mitchell‘s theory of how the boy died, which top pediatric neurologists called “absolutely false,” “made up” and “fantastical.”

Former Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez’s office continued to prosecute the case, however, until a judge dismissed it in December 2022 because prosecutors had failed to seek a new expert opinion in time.

The DA’s office pledged to appeal the dismissal but announced in January 2023 that their new expert pathologist, Dr. Jane Turner, had found that the boy had died from a heart defect and other natural conditions. The DA’s office’s press release at the time stated that they did not have sufficient evidence to continue prosecution. (Read more background on the case at the links below this article.)

Altogether, Buchhorn spent more than 5 1/2 years in custody of the Douglas County jail, Topeka prison and on house arrest before her case was dismissed.

Buchhorn’s attorneys, Bill Skepnek and Quentin Templeton, filed the wrongful conviction case in February 2023. Years of legal battles have followed, including a bench trial in the fall of 2025.

In order to receive compensation under the state’s wrongful conviction statute (KSA 60-5004), defendants-turned-plaintiffs must prove by a preponderance of the evidence — more likely true than not — that they were actually innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. Defendants whose convictions are reversed because of constitutional rights violations, for instance, are not necessarily entitled to payment for time wrongfully spent behind bars.

They generally must also prove that the criminal case against them was dismissed, or not refiled, because of their innocence.

“As to the dismissal of the charges being the result of actual innocence, the Court finds that Ms. Buchhorn has met her burden,” McCabria wrote.

“The State’s only argument against such a finding is that Suzanne Valdez says she believes Ms. Buchhorn is guilty. This statement is entitled to no deference from this Court on the facts presented.”

In addition, “this Court finds the opinion of Suzanne Valdez as to the innocence or guilt of Carrody Buchhorn so lacking in legal and factual understanding of the evidence as to merit no weight whatsoever,” McCabria wrote.

Valdez had testified that she found Turner’s report to be “wonky.”

Turner wrote in her 11-page report that she had been a practicing forensic pathologist for more than 20 years and had performed more than 5,000 autopsies, including on hundreds of infants and children.

Her findings regarding a hairline skull fracture were consistent with what the defense expert had said during Buchhorn’s trial — that the injury showed signs of healing, and there were no injuries to the brain commonly associated with a lethal traumatic brain injury, as Mitchell had asserted during Buchhorn’s criminal trial.

The report couldn’t provide definitive answers: Mitchell did not collect cerebrospinal fluid to submit for viral, bacterial and fungal cultures, nor vitreous fluid for electrolyte testing, according to the report, and the autopsy did not include an examination of the inner ear structures, despite the boy’s history of ear infections.

There was evidence of infection, Turner wrote: a rectal swab viral culture isolated enterovirus, and a nasal swab culture isolated rhinovirus. A blood culture grew streptococcus salivarius, which although normal in the mouth “is not normal in the bloodstream and is considered an opportunistic pathogen.

“In fact, LabCorp personnel treated the culture result as a critical value in calling Ms. Sharon Mandel, investigator, to report it to her,” Turner wrote.

The boy also had hyperglycemia — his blood sugar was more than 4 times the normal range, which could have indicated diabetes — and hypothermia at the time of this death, according to the report. It was also possible that he had sepsis, but that could not have been definitively diagnosed, Turner wrote.

“Almost any infection can lead to sepsis, which is the body’s extreme response to an infection,” Turner wrote. “Without timely treatment, sepsis can rapidly lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death.”

“Rather than ‘wonky,’ this is a detailed, nuanced analysis (as the Court finds all of Dr. Turner’s report),” McCabria wrote in his ruling on Monday.

A cardiovascular doctor found a congenital defect in the boy’s heart, though Mitchell never updated his report to reflect that finding. The foramen ovale is a hole between the two atrial chambers of the heart that closes soon after birth. If it doesn’t close, it’s called a patent foramen ovale. Turner wrote that it is her opinion that this put the boy at risk for blood clots or lethal arterial stroke, which would be “undetectable at autopsy when the death is sudden.”

The boy’s family believed that the heart valves had been donated. However, evidence uncovered in the legal proceedings showed that the Midwest Transport Network had deemed the boy’s organs unsuitable because he was positive for rhinovirus and enterovirus.

Buchhorn admitted during the bench trial in the wrongful conviction case that she’d sent “horrible” text messages, including that “I’m going to kill a baby today” and “I’m in hell,” and that the boy was being “an asshole,” in August 2016, prior to his death.

Her family members testified that she used the phrase that she was “going to kill” someone frequently as an expression of frustration, but none had seen her yell at or behave violently toward a child.

McCabria wrote that the messages were wildly immature, dramatic, distasteful and, in the context of the boy’s death, “alarming and cause for suspicion and investigation.

“But, in the context of all the other evidence, and as contradicted by objective, forensic evidence, not persuasive evidence of murder,” he wrote.

McCabria wrote that Valdez had testified that “Everyone else on her team” — including attorneys in her office; the boy’s mother and great aunt; Mark Simpson, who had prosecuted the criminal case along with CJ Rieg and is now chief judge in Douglas County District Court; and Eudora Police Detective Daniel Flick, “(who did not read all of it)” — felt that Turner’s report “didn’t make sense,” and that the boy’s mother “knows her kid better than any doctor.” So Valdez continues to believe Mitchell, the text messages, and that the boy was healthy on Sept. 29, 2016, and Buchhorn had killed him, McCabria wrote.

Another parent of a child at the daycare testified that she recalled discussions with Buchhorn and the daycare owner in which Buchhorn expressed concerns about the boy’s health, and frustration that her concerns were not being taken seriously, according to the ruling.

“The only credible forensic explanation of (the boy’s) death is that he died of natural disease and pathophysiologic processes unrelated to child abuse,” McCabria wrote.

Skepnek, Buchhorn’s attorney, said Monday night that he was not surprised by the ruling.

He said the ruling recognizes the wrongs done to the Buchhorn family.

“Think about the impact on the family of a mom … accused of and convicted of murdering a 9-month-old child,” Skepnek said. “To me, to be exonerated exonerates not just Carrody, but her entire family.”

“… I’ve been practicing law now for 48 years, and so I’ve represented a lot of people, and a lot of good people. I don’t know that I’ve ever represented better people than the Buchhorn family,” he said.

Skepnek said the ruling did a good thing for the people of Lawrence and Kansas because it recognizes that the state can do wrong, and the court can recognize the thing that was wrong and right it.

“The Kansas Legislature decided that if you’ve been wrongfully convicted, you should be compensated, and that’s not just to compensate you for your loss — it’s to inhibit the state from doing these things,” Skepnek said. “That’s why it matters, that’s why the Legislature would create that. It’s not only for Carrody’s benefit, that she gets this — it’s for all of our benefit.”

“… If you want to talk about a celebration of the Declaration of Independence — it really is.”

McCabria ordered that Buchhorn be paid according to state statute and awarded a certificate of innocence. Her criminal record will be expunged.

“Upon receiving a certified copy of the certificate of innocence and the judgment entry from the clerk of the court, the bill requires the Attorney General to pay any judgment through the procedure established in the Tort Claims Act,” according to a 2018 summary of the legislation creating the wrongful conviction cause of action.

McCabria also wrote that “the Court finds that any reasonable amount for attorney fees and costs incurred in this action would far exceed $25,000.00 and the same is awarded, subject to any request for a greater reasonable sum on a finding of good cause as permitted by statute.”

Click here to open the PDF of McCabria’s full ruling in a new tab.

A related civil case is ongoing in federal court.""

The entire story can be read at: 

https://lawrencekstimes.com/2026/07/06/judge-rules-buchhorn-innocent/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;