SYLAHS GATHER - 9 months - (2009) Columbus OH

The mother of a 9-month-old boy who died of internal injuries Wednesday interrupted courtroom
proceedings with an emotional outburst yesterday morning to ask that the man charged with killing
the child not be allowed to harass her.
Ashley Gather said Harold C. Warner had called her three times from the Franklin County jail.
She said Warner was trying to intimidate her. Standing behind a Plexiglas partition, she demanded
that Franklin County Municipal Judge W. Dwayne Maynard stop the calls.
Sylahs Gather, Gather and Warner's son, died early Wednesday at Nationwide Children's Hospital,
authorities said.
Warner, who requested protective custody, was ordered by Maynard not to have any unsupervised
contact with children or with the child's mother.Veronica Hill, the child's great aunt, said Ashley Gather was too distraught yesterday morning
to discuss the situation further.
Warner, 24, was arrested Wednesday by homicide detectives at his Far East Side apartment. He is
charged with murder and was in the Franklin County jail yesterday afternoon. Maynard set his bail
yesterday morning at $25,085.
A preliminary hearing for Warner will be held Friday morning.


Warner told police that he found the baby not breathing in their bathtub Tuesday night. An
autopsy by the Franklin County coroner's office showed that the infant had been assaulted.
"His version of the events did not match the child's injuries," Columbus police detective James
S. Porter said.
Warner told detectives that he briefly left his son in the water-filled tub and, when he
returned, the child was not breathing. He was at home alone with the child.
The boy was in full cardiac arrest when Columbus paramedics took him from the Winding Creek
Apartments, 4609 Refugee Rd., at 8:30 Tuesday night. Sylahs died in the intensive-care unit about 3
a.m.
Franklin County Coroner Jan Gorniak said the child died of internal injuries, including a
damaged liver. There was evidence that the injuries had been inflicted recently, she said. The
charges also say the baby had been shaken.

Man 10 years for death of his infant son


Harold C. Warner called 9-1-1 in November 2009 and frantically told a dispatcher that he had found his infant son not breathing after leaving him unattended in a bathtub in their apartment.
He performed CPR at the dispatcher's direction while waiting for paramedics, but the 9-month-old boy died the next morning at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus.
When an autopsy determined that Sylahs Gather died of trauma to the head, chest and abdomen, Warner was indicted on charges of murder, felonious assault and child endangering.
The 25-year-old Columbus man was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison at a hearing in which he took responsibility for the death but continued to contend that it wasn't intentional.
"I would never hurt my child, despite the way things look," he said in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.
Warner pleaded guilty last month to involuntary manslaughter and child endangering.
Franklin County prosecutors offered Warner the plea bargain that dropped the murder case after his defense attorney submitted a report from a forensic pathologist who disagreed with the autopsy findings by Dr. Kenneth Gerston of the county coroner's office.
Dr. Thomas W. Young, a former medical examiner in Missouri, wrote that the death was caused by "complications of near drowning," which can result in blood-clotting that appears to be the result of trauma.
He also concluded that some internal injuries could have resulted from Warner performing "adult-style CPR" on the infant.
Gerston reported that the child suffered a lacerated liver, bleeding in the brain and eyes, and kidney injuries.
"The case would have come down to a battle of experts," defense attorney Mitch Williams said.
One family member spoke in court and expressed outrage at the plea agreement. Veronica Hill, whose niece Ashley Gather is the baby's mother, said the case should have been taken to trial to seek a murder conviction.
"Sylahs Gather was a human being, and his life was taken deliberately, heinously and violently," she said.
Warner and Ashley Gather were engaged at the time and lived together.
Assistant County Prosecutor Robert Letson said the plea bargain was offered after weighing "the pros and cons" of taking the case to a jury trial.
"By no means do we concede that this was an accident," he said. "We believe that it is murder."
Judge David E. Cain also took exception to Warner's characterization of the death.
"It was still gross neglect," he said.
At the same time, Cain said he understood the decision to offer Warner a plea bargain. "I've seen hundreds of jury trials, and often it is a roll of the dice," he said.
Cain sentenced Warner to 10 years for involuntary manslaughter and five years for child endangering, to be served concurrently. Warner was credited with 423 days served in jail since his arrest.

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