PEYTON RAIN SHEARER - 4 months (2011)/ Convicted: Babysitter; Jeanette M. Janusiak - Baraboo MN

Jury: Baby sitter murdered infant

23 hours ago  •  Tim Damos

A jury Wednesday found Reedsburg baby sitter Jeanette M. Janusiak guilty of murdering an infant under her care in 2011.

Sobbing erupted from the gallery of a Baraboo courtroom immediately after Sauk County Circuit Court Judge Patrick Taggart read the verdict. The jury began deliberations around 11:30 a.m. and had reached a unanimous decision by 2 p.m.

“I love you,” someone shouted to the 27-year-old Janusiak from an area of the gallery that included her friends and family.

Taggart accepted the jury’s verdict and found Janusiak guilty of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of 4-month-old Payten Rain Shearer. She was not immediately sentenced Wednesday, but faces the possibility of life in prison.

Janusiak stood up, turned around, and looked briefly at her supporters before security escorted her from the courtroom through a side door. Friends and family consoled her fiancé, Jessie Heath, who is the father of four of her children, as he sobbed on a courtroom bench.

Supporters of the victim’s mother, Angela Shearer, who sat on the opposite side of the gallery, left almost immediately after proceedings were adjourned. Several officers lined a railing that separates the spectator’s gallery from the attorneys, judge and jury.

Prior to deliberations, the baby sitter and her attorney asked the jury not be given the option of finding her guilty of a lesser charge, such as reckless homicide. That meant that if jurors did not believe Janusiak intended to cause the child's death, they would be forced to acquit her.

During closing arguments Wednesday morning, Sauk County District Attorney Kevin Calkins addressed the issue of intent.

“You don’t crush a baby’s skull; you don’t cause three significant (skull) fractures; you don’t beat this child against something – or with something – without intending to cause death,” Calkins said.

He told jurors DNA evidence introduced at trial showed that Janusiak had attempted to clean the baby before police and ambulance workers arrived. Investigators found the child’s blood spattered on a wall in the bedroom from which Janusiak called 911.

They also found Payten’s blood on a sheet covering the bed, and on a washcloth and Q-tip that were tucked underneath the mattress. The child’s blood also was found on a tissue, a pillow case and diapers that were found in the trash.

“Payten Shearer spent a lot of time bleeding at the defendant’s residence,” Calkins said.

He also took shots at Minnesota forensic pathologist John Plunkett, who was hired by the defense and testified that the presence of iron in blood beneath one of the child’s head wounds showed it had been healing for at least three days prior to her death. Plunkett said the child may have experienced a period of lucidity between the time she sustained the wound and when she was found by Janusiak.

But medical experts from the University of Wisconsin Hospital system disagreed with Plunkett, and said the child most likely was rendered unconscious immediately following the blows to the head. They said those wounds likely were inflicted the same night Janusiak called 911.

Calkins also called into question Janusiak's truthfulness, pointing out inconsistencies in her story, and alleged bias on the part of family members who testified on her behalf.

Defense attorney Eric Schulenburg told jurors they should not disregard the testimony of Janusiak’s supporters simply because of their ties to her.

“I can’t bring in strangers to tell you about the defendant,” Schulenburg said. “So I bring in her family.”

He said it seemed unlikely that a woman who had no documented history of child abuse would murder the daughter of her then-best friend, Payten, who Janusiak said she loved as if she was one of her own.

Someone who had just committed an act of violence against an infant would be more likely to stage an accident, Schulenburg said, such as dropping the child on a sidewalk or down a flight of stairs.

“You would not call 911,” Schulenburg said.

He also said the fact that the child had been sodomized does not seem consistent with the idea that Janusiak was the perpetrator. He encouraged jurors to question the prosecution's storyline.

“Women don’t sodomize babies,” Schulenburg said. “Women don’t sodomize anyone. It doesn’t feel right.”

A sentencing date for Janusiak has not yet been set.

http://www.wiscnews.com/news/local/article_342ef76a-efbd-5ec0-8498-480e58aa7298.html