Trial begins for Misawa airman in baby’s death

[unhappycamper]

Trial begins for Misawa airman in baby’s death
By Allison Batdorff, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, January 11, 2008

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — The court-martial of a Misawa-based sailor accused of killing his infant daughter started Wednesday at Yokosuka.

Seaman Recruit Jonathan Delgado is charged with fatally abusing 2-month-old Kylie Delgado on July 15, 2006, in a Misawa Air Base housing tower. The baby died two days later on Okinawa after life support was withdrawn.

Prosecutors claim the 22-year-old Naval Information Operation Command sailor killed the child by “shaking her to death.”

“She did not die from disease or by accident — she died in the hands of the man entrusted to her care,” prosecutor Cmdr. Dave Karpel told jurors during opening statements.

Delgado’s defense said that the evidence instead points to sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. Defense attorney Lt. James Jung called shaken baby syndrome a disputed theory and said prosecutors “jumped the gun” on their assumption.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51529