"Baby" JUAN-LOPEZ - 4 months -(2010) Tuscaloosa AL

Tuscaloosa AL ---- Tuscaloosa Homicide Detectives have arrested a Northport
Hispanic couple in the death of their four month old infant. Police say Miguel
Juan, 29 and Moria Lopez, 25 took the child to D.C.H. Medical Center in
Tuscaloosa twice on Saturday. The first visit was because the child was nausea
"vomiting and diarrhea."

Homicide Chief, Captain Lloyd
Baker says an autopsy shows the child died from Blunt Trauma to the head that
was not the result of an accident. "Based upon what the medical examiner says
would cause that type injury, " said Baker.

The baby's
aunt who lived with the couple in Greenvillage Mobile Home park, Maruca Miguel
Diego said through an interpreter "The child was drinking milk and
started vomiting Saturday night. They took him to the hospital and he died."
Diego insists the parents did not harm the child.

But, investigators say they are convinced otherwise by the autopsy and interview
with the couple.

The couple did have a second child but
he is now in state custody. Juan and Lopez remain in jail without bond.

Parents charged with murder in baby’s death


Miguel Juan, right, and Maria Lopez told investigators that they did not hurt their 4-month-old baby.

By Stephanie Taylor Staff Writer
Published: Saturday, July 3, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, July 2, 2010 at 11:16 p.m.

TUSCALOOSA | Autopsy results indicate that a four-month old baby who died in April suffered a brain injury possibly caused by being violently shaken.

There were no signs of external trauma on the infant’s body, an investigator testified at a court hearing for parents Miguel Juan and Maria Lopez. Juan, 29, and Lopez, 25, have been charged with capital murder in the death of the child.

Investigators charged the couple based on the autopsy results and their statements that they were the only people around their son the day he died. They said during police interviews that they did not harm the child.

The infant died from acute subdural hematoma that extended to both hemispheres of the cerebral cortex, according to an autopsy conducted by Dr. Stephen Boudreau, a senior medical examiner for the state who specializes in anatomic and clinical pathology.

“He was adamant that these types of injuries are caused by blunt force trauma,” Investigator Robert Davis testified in court Friday morning.

The parents took the infant to DCH Regional Medical Center twice on April 11. During the first visit around 8 or 9 a.m., they told doctors that he was experiencing diarrhea and vomiting. Nurses told investigators that Lopez was holding the child flat while feeding him. They said they demonstrated that the baby should be held upright and fed him a bottle before the family returned to their home in Green Village mobile home park in Northport.

The couple returned to the hospital with the baby that afternoon. Doctors noticed a white substance in his lungs and thought he had choked, Davis said.

The doctor who performed the autopsy later concluded that the infant died from head trauma.

Decreased appetite, poor feeding or vomiting for no apparent reason is one of many indicators that a baby has been violently shaken, according to the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome. It is unlikely for a child to die or experience the same internal bleeding from a fall or other accident, according to the center.

Davis said that the couple share the large mobile home with another couple and two other men. Lopez works at Mercedes with at least one of the roommates, he said.

“We spoke with a female there who said that she heard what she thought was arguing, then what she thought was crying,” he said. The woman opened the door to the couple’s room, he testified, and saw that they seemed to be upset and that the baby’s lips had turned blue.

Davis said the couple had said during interviews that they had been sleeping. The baby had been asleep beside the couple’s mattress on the floor. Lopez said that she returned from the bathroom and found that the baby was not breathing. Juan said that he woke up and noticed that the baby had stopped breathing.

“He said that neither would harm the baby. He could have hit the baby with his hand while he was asleep, but he does not believe that he hit the baby,” he said.

The couple are natives of Guatemala and required several translators during police interviews. They sat in the corner of Judge Jim Guin’s courtroom Friday separated by a Spanish interpreter. Juan speaks some Spanish, while his wife speaks very little. They both speak a Guatemalan dialect.

Guin ruled that there is enough evidence to continue prosecution of the couple, who are being held at the Tuscaloosa County Jail with no bail set. They have another child who is around a year and a half old and has been taken into the custody of the Department of Human Resources.

Juan is being represented by Tuscaloosa attorneys Mike Upton and Jay Stuck. Jim and Shelly Standridge are representing Lopez. The Standridges previously represented Bridget Lee, a Pickens County mother who was accused of killing her newborn baby in 2006. The murder charge against her was dropped when her attorneys had an independent reviewer dispute findings of the initial autopsy indicating suffocation as the cause of death.

Tuscaloosa County assistant district attorney Lyn Head is representing the state, which is seeking the death penalty against the couple.

Reach Stephanie Taylor at

stephanie.taylor@tuscaloosa

news.com or 205-722-0210.

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20100703/news/100709934?p=1&tc=pg

No update found.

Please contact our forum if you have information about this case.