PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This important decision has just come to my attention. I will be keeping an eye out for further reports.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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STORY: "St. Louis woman acquitted of fatal child abuse charge," reported by The St. Louis City Circuit Court, on October 30, 2026.
GIST: "A St. Louis woman was acquitted at trial this week in the death of a 5-month-old boy in 2023.
Jurors on Thursday found Diamond Keen, 27, not guilty of one count of child abuse resulting in death. She was accused of causing severe head injuries that led to Emerald Johnson’s death in August 2023. Emerald’s mother had asked Keen to watch her baby because while she was recovering from a shoulder injury.
Keen was watching the baby for a friend in an apartment at 600 North Kingshighway for a couple of days when the boy was found in cardiac arrest and died at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Charges said an autopsy showed the baby suffered internal brain bleeding and died of closed head trauma resulting from being shaken.
Prosecutors argued that Keen caused the boy's injuries by shaking him. Keen told police Emerald was only out of her sight for 30 seconds, according to charges. Charges also said two other people had visited the apartment within four hours of Emerald’s death but that they told investigators the child seemed normal when they two hours before the child was hospitalized.
In recorded police interviews played at trial this week, Keen repeatedly denied dropping or abusing Emerald and told police she did not know how he could have gotten hurt.
Keen’s lawyers presented testimony from medical experts to challenge autopsy findings that Emerald's injuries were the result of shaking and to explain how research into medical conclusions "shaken baby syndrome" have changed in recent years.
Jurors on Thursday found Diamond Keen, 27, not guilty of one count of child abuse resulting in death. She was accused of causing severe head injuries that led to Emerald Johnson’s death in August 2023. Emerald’s mother had asked Keen to watch her baby because while she was recovering from a shoulder injury.
Keen was watching the baby for a friend in an apartment at 600 North Kingshighway for a couple of days when the boy was found in cardiac arrest and died at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Charges said an autopsy showed the baby suffered internal brain bleeding and died of closed head trauma resulting from being shaken.
Prosecutors argued that Keen caused the boy's injuries by shaking him. Keen told police Emerald was only out of her sight for 30 seconds, according to charges. Charges also said two other people had visited the apartment within four hours of Emerald’s death but that they told investigators the child seemed normal when they two hours before the child was hospitalized.
In recorded police interviews played at trial this week, Keen repeatedly denied dropping or abusing Emerald and told police she did not know how he could have gotten hurt.
Keen’s lawyers presented testimony from medical experts to challenge autopsy findings that Emerald's injuries were the result of shaking and to explain how research into medical conclusions "shaken baby syndrome" have changed in recent years.
The entire report can be read at:
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
