Power takes stand in baby murder trial
Published on February 1st, 2006
CAMBRIDGE, MA - Occasionally holding back tears, Reading resident Ann Power testified yesterday in her trial on charges of murder, denying under direct and cross examination that she killed three month-old MacKenzie Rose Corrigan, even as Assistant District Attorney Nathanial Yeager tried to get a different story from the defendant.
In response to questions by her defense attorney, Andrew D'Angelo, Power said, "I don't know how MacKenzie got her injuries."
To D'Angelo's question of whether she shook the infant who was in her unlicensed day care, Power said, "I never shook MacKenzie. I am absolutely sure of that."
However, at the end of a long cross examination Yeager charged Power directly with killing the baby, and Power replied, "I never did."
Yeager said, "On June 4, 2003, you lost your temper because of the frustration of the illegal day care you were running and picked her up and shook her to death."
He then ended his cross-examination without giving Power a chance to reply to the charge.
During his cross examination, Yeager focused on the one witness who has created a question about the events of the day. According to testimony on Friday from Karen Stuart, who came early to pick up her daughter on the day in question, Corrigan was not sleeping in the family room as several other witnesses have claimed.
The prosecution is claiming that the baby may have been sleeping in a second floor bedroom.
At times choking up as she retold her account of the events of the day, Power claimed she fed Corrigan at 9 a.m., burped her one or two times and finished feeding her about 9:30 a.m.
She then changed the infant's diaper and later placed her into a car seat about 11 a.m., because the child was a little fussy. Power said that she carried the car seat with her in it into the kitchen of her home, where the day care was located, while she prepared lunches for the first group of children to eat.
Before feeding those children, Power claims she brought Corrigan back into the family room and placed the car seat she was in on the floor next to another infant that was sleeping.
"She was awake, but seemed sleepy," Power said.
She then left the family room to feed some of the older children. After the lunch break, Power said she came back to the family room to get a second group of kids for their lunch and saw that MacKenzie and the other infant were still sleeping.
After the second set of children was fed, Power said she went back into the family room and was feeding another child some fruit out of a bowl as the child, a toddler, was sitting on the floor. This is the area of time that is in question.
In her testimony on Friday, Stuart said she arrived about noon time to pick up her daughter for a kindergarten orientation program. She said that the toddler was in his car seat, which is where Corrigan, according to Power and
others, was supposedly sleeping.
The car seat belonged to the older boy and Power had said she had placed Corrigan in it because it was larger and less restrictive than the infant's car seat. Stuart claimed that she had not seen Corrigan in the room.
Stuart's testimony has come into question because she was not interviewed by police until three months after the incident. Yeager said that Power had not told several police and regulatory authorities about Stuart because she was the only witness who actually was in the room when Corrigan was supposed to be there.
Power claimed that she had not given Stuart's name to police and others, including Department of Children's Services and Department of Early Childhood and Development workers, because she was not there when it was first discovered that Corrigan was not responding and not breathing about 12:30 p.m. on June 4.
However, Power claimed that she was attempting to give Stuart's information to her then attorney on the night of June 5 when police came to the door and asked all of the occupants of the house to leave until a search warrant was secured. At that time Power grabbed up some papers (including Stuart's telephone number) and tried to leave the house with them, claiming they were part of attorney/client privilege, but the police took them back on the advice of an assistant district attorney.
Even though they had the telephone number on June 5, Stuart was not contacted by police until September.
In other testimony, Dr. Christopher Van Ee, a bio-mechanical engineer, said that he performed tests at the request of D'Angelo's firm, Carney and Bassil, which basically demonstrated that the injuries suffered by Corrigan could have been caused by a child who might haven been shaking the car seat too hard. He noted that a child would not be able to pick the child up and shake her but could shake the car seat with enough force to cause injury.
The defense is offering this as a possible alternative for the fatal injuries suffered by Corrigan.
In other business relating to the case, Judge Peter Lauriat denied a motion by Defense Attorney J. W. Carney for a directed verdict of innocent. The pro forma motion was made at the end of the prosecution's case on Monday.
The defense ended their case yesterday with Dr. Van Ee's testimony. It is expected that the prosecution may present a rebuttal case today and the jury may have the case by Thursday afternoon.
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