BAILEY SOPPELAND - 6 Months - Eagan (S of St Paul) MN

A Dakota County jury on Friday convicted a south-metro woman of
breaking a dozen bones in a 6-month-old family member while providing
child care in early 2009.
Laura M. Wilkinson, 31, of Eagan, was found guilty of six out of
seven felony counts of malicious punishment of a child after the baby
girl, Bailey Soppeland, was found to have a dozen fractures in various
stages of healing.
Prosecutor Nicole Nee told jurors that the fractures -- of all of the
baby's limbs plus two ribs -- were caused by someone squeezing, yanking
and twisting the baby between January and April 2009.
Judge David Knutson set sentencing for Sept. 10. Each count carries a
maximum penalty of five years in prison, but prosecutors will seek a
harsher punishment because of the child's vulnerability and other
factors, said Phil Prokopowicz, chief deputy of the Dakota County attorney's office.
Nee told jurors that Wilkinson admitted to a police detective that
she squeezed or roughly handled Bailey Soppeland five or six times. Nee
said the sitter, a cousin of the baby's father, took out frustrations
over her own lack of direction on the baby.
"The evidence shows you [that] the defendant knew she was hurting
Bailey," Nee said, adding that Wilkinson told police she was exasperated
with the baby's frequent crying.
But defense attorney Jeff Dean said Wilkinson coped by putting on
headphones. Dean said police targeted Wilkinson early on and failed to
ask basic questions of the parents, Daniel and Michelle Soppeland, which
could have cast suspicion on the father.
Dean also told jurors that because of an incomplete police and
medical investigation, nobody tested Bailey for rickets, a disease he
contends could have led to the broken bones.
Rickets, a metabolic disease, can cause bones to be susceptible to
fracture, even from ordinary handling. Some experts say the disease can
be passed to a baby by a nursing mother who is deficient in Vitamin D.