CANADA • Male, 3 (2007) ~ Edmonton AB

September 16, 2011 - Edmonton nurse Lily Choy has been found guilty of manslaughter for causing a three-year-old boy who was a foster child in her care to suffer a deadly brain injury.

It is the second time the 37-year-old foster mom was convicted of manslaughter in the 2007 death as a result of the Court of Appeal of Alberta ordering a new trial.


Lily Choy. (Police photo)

In a three-hour decision delivered Wednesday, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Donna Read ruled Choy had “caused the death” by assaulting the boy, but said she had a reasonable doubt over whether she intended it.

As a result - despite her “grave suspicions” - Read found Choy not guilty of second-degree murder, but guilty of the lesser offence of manslaughter.

Following the decision, the boy's father and aunt angrily stormed out of the courtroom, and there were loud expressions of disbelief by people in the public gallery.

City homicide Det. Bill Clark, who interviewed Choy after the death, said he was “very surprised” by the ruling.

“In my opinion, this is a woman without remorse,” Clark said outside the downtown Law Courts building.

“It was a vicious attack on a three-year-old boy.”

Choy hugged her supporters after the decision and was expected to walk out of the courtroom after being granted bail pending her Oct. 17 sentencing hearing.

However, court sheriffs took her into the cells adjoining the courtroom to speak to her lawyer and then escorted her to an unknown area so she could leave the building.

Clark took exception to that and criticized one of the sheriffs for giving Choy “special treatment.”

During the trial, which began April 4, court heard police were called to Choy's west-end home Jan. 26, 2007, after the boy was taken to Stollery Children's Hospital suffering from serious head trauma. He died in hospital the next day as a result of a fatal brain injury, which was later determined to be caused by blunt force trauma.

Choy testified in her own defence the boy had been “frantic” and “screaming,” and she had carried him to a downstairs bathroom where she said he had hit his head on the toilet after she fell over as a result of him hitting her.

Read rejected Choy's evidence, calling it “incredible” and saying she did not believe her.

The judge also rejected the defence expert witnesses while accepting the Crown's medical evidence that the boy had suffered a deadly brain injury as a result of “abusive head trauma” involving “severe force.”

As well, Read ruled that she accepted that Choy had spanked the boy, causing bruising on his buttocks, she had forced him to walk up and down stairs late at night for exercise, and had placed him in a frigid garage in only his diaper as punishment for wetting the bed.

In 2008, a jury convicted Choy of manslaughter after a five-week trial and three days of deliberations. She was sentenced to three years in prison.

But she was granted bail two months into her sentence pending cross appeals by both the Crown and defence.

A new trial was ordered last year after a three-judge panel ruled the trial judge had erred in the way he urged the deadlocked jury in the case to reach a verdict.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2011/09/15/18689111.html


Foster child had bruises on body, court told
April 5, 2011
Pictures of a three-year-old foster child showing bruises on his neck, back, arms and legs were entered into evidence Tuesday at the trial of the woman accused of killing him.

Lily Choy, 36, is on trial for second-degree murder in the boy's death. She was his foster mother at the time he died from a brain injury in January 2007.

The pictures of the boy were taken while he was in hospital and during his autopsy. He cannot be identified under provincial child welfare legislation.

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