"The
new evidence and the Lake County coroner’s new ruling in the death of
Ben Kingan — a death that put young daycare worker Melissa Calusinski in
prison — was aired on “48 Hours” Saturday night. The
new evidence raises critical questions a judge will need to weigh as he
considers whether a hearing should be conducted to grant her a new
trial. Judge Daniel Shanes has said he’ll decide by Sept. 15. X-rays of the boy’s head never before seen by the defense led the coroner to change the cause of death to “undetermined” earlier this month. And the defense only learned of the existence of those X-rays because of an anonymous tipster. CBS correspondent Erin Moriarty, who profiled the Calusinski case in February, asks in Saturday’s program: Why
weren’t all the autopsy X-rays shown at trial? We know now that there
were five X-rays — the two newly discovered images and three others that
were unreadable. All of the images now appear to be easily accessible
in the coroner’s computer system. However, at trial, the assistant
state’s attorney who prosecuted Melissa’s case told the judge and the
defense team about three X-rays, the unreadable ones. Was it a simple
mistake or did someone deliberately withhold the readable images from
the defense? Who is the anonymous caller who finally let Melissa’s
family know the X-rays existed? And why now? Current
Coroner Thomas Rudd, contradicting the former coroner’s conclusions,
says there was no evidence of a skull fracture and also no evidence of
injuries to the child’s legs. ........Rudd said he was also shocked to learn that those X-rays were in the coroner’s offices electronic files."
http://patch.com/illinois/deerfield/melissa-calusinski-daycare-death-again-profiled-48-hours-0