Injuries made toddler vulnerable

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This article was published 20/02/2018 (2255 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Blunt force to the abdomen caused 21-month-old Kierra Elektra Starr Williams’ death, but a pathologist says numerous previous injuries and malnutrition made her more vulnerable.

Dr. Susan Phillips (now retired) told a nine-man, three-woman Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench jury the force to the child’s abdomen was so strong, it caused cuts to her liver, pancreas and first part of her small bowel.

Kierra died shortly after being rushed to hospital in Hodgson, just south of Peguis First Nation, in July 2014.

The toddler’s father, Daniel Williams, 37, has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and failing to provide the necessaries of life.

Phillips said she found the injuries caused Kierra to internally bleed 200 cubic centimetres of blood into her abdomen.

“Two-hundred-and-50 cc is a cup. It doesn’t seem much,” she said under questioning Wednesday by Crown attorney Daniel Chaput.

“(But) that represents a third of her blood.”

Phillips said the autopsy also found 19 fractures to the toddler’s skull and ribs, along with numerous bruises, cuts and scrapes to her head, neck, back, arms and legs.

She said most of the injuries were healing or had healed, but one rib that had been fractured previously was fractured again.

Kierra weighed less than 17 pounds (7.7 kilograms) at the autopsy, when medical records showed she had weighed more than 18 pounds (8.3 kg) a year earlier.

“It was apparent she was stunted in growth and grossly malnourished,” Phillips said. “She should have weighed somewhere around 12 kilograms… In the last year of her life, something interfered with her normal growth.”

Phillips said because Kierra didn’t receive enough nourishment, her body was less able to recover from injuries and was more vulnerable to new ones.

Court has been told Kierra was born Oct. 8, 2012, to Williams and her mother, Vanessa Bushie, and placed immediately into foster care for the next eight months of her life.

She was returned to her parents and two older siblings at Peguis in July 2013.

Court has been told Child and Family Services monitored Kierra’s care for several months before closing the file early in 2014.

Later, under questioning by defence counsel Greg Brodsky, Phillips admitted even if Kierra hadn’t been injured previously, “The child may well have died anyway” solely due to the injuries caused to her internal organs.

Phillips also said because Kierra had lost five teeth, it “would have made it hard to chew” food. “I can make no conclusion on the child’s behaviour.”

Earlier in the trial, a dentist testified the child lost the teeth due to a “traumatic injury.”

When asked by Brodsky whether the child’s ribs could have been fractured by a fall, Phillips said they were injured during “at least three different events.”

“It would have to be three very significant falls,” she said.

The trial continues.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca