SIMONE CAVANAUGH - 9 months (2005) - Oakland MI

Oakland MI ---- A jury was seated this
morning, and opening statements will begin Monday in the open murder trial of
Shontelle Cavanaugh, a former Oakland University honor student accused of
smothering her baby to death in 2005.
Cavanaugh, 28,
smothered her 9-month-old daughter, Simone, with her hand on June 6, 2005. She
is asking jurors to find her not guilty by reason of insanity, saying she was
suffering postpartum psychosis at the time and was insane.

The eight men and six
women selected for the jury include a limousine driver, a small business owner,
a Chrysler autoworker, a homemaker and a cosmetology student. Potential jurors
during the day and a half of jury selection often answered very personal
questions about their own mental health, and that of their family members. Some
jurors were excused because they said they could not set aside the emotions they
felt about the death of a baby.


Cavanaugh had been diagnosed with postpartum depression in
the months after the birth of Simone, and state psychiatrists who examined
Cavanaugh after the killing agreed she was insane at the time of the baby’s
death.


Prosecutors contend she killed the baby because she was weary
of being a single mother. They are expected to present a forensic psychologist
who will say she was sane at the time.


The trial, before Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Rae Lee
Chabot, has been repeatedly delayed because Cavanaugh has been hospitalized to
enable her to become competent to assist her attorneys. She has also had several
defense attorneys.


If convicted, she faces life in prison without parole.

An Oakland Circuit Court jury began hearing witnesses today in the
trial of a Pontiac woman who investigators believe smothered her
9-month-old baby because she was tired of caring for the child. Her
defense attorney, however, insists she suffered from postpartum
depression and should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Shontelle
Cavanaugh, 28, is charged with the June 6, 2005, murder of her
daughter, Simone. Pontiac Police Fire Lt. Roman Prosser said he was
dispatched on a "child not breathing" call and arrived and was met at
the door by the child's grandmother. The child was lying on the living
room floor, Prosser remembered, and the grandmother told him the child's
mother -- Cavanaugh -- was upstairs."(Cavanaugh) was sitting in a rocking chair; I believe it was in the
nursery," Prosser testified. "I tried to engage her in the child's
(medical) history but didn't get any response. She averted my gaze ...
she was kind of rocking. I saw no tears, and that struck me. Usually (in
such cases) it is a very excited situation -- a high degree of
emotion." Under cross-examination by defense attorney Richard
Convertino, Prosser said he had reported the grandmother saying
Cavanaugh had been diagnosed with postpartum depression. In
opening remarks, assistant prosecutor Brett Chudler described Cavanaugh
as a former Oakland University honor student whose actions were
premeditated and deliberate and would be supported by forensic
psychiatrists who came to the same impression. The psychiatrists will
testify of their impressions of Cavanaugh, Chudler said. "You
will hear about someone who is not being truthful -- malingering or
feigning mental illness," Chudler told jurors. Convertino said he
also has experts who will tell of Cavanaugh's mental illness. He
described the baby's death as tragic but "there is no blame for this
tragedy. "She (Cavanaugh) is a sick woman who spiraled out of
control." The trial is being heard before Judge Rae Lee Chabot.

Shontelle Cavanaugh was
either horrifically mentally ill or horrifically self-absorbed the morning she
smothered her 9-month-old daughter in their Pontiac home. Jurors will have to
decide.
Attorneys made opening
statements in Cavanaugh’s murder trial this morning in Oakland County Circuit
Court. Prosecutor Brett Chudler painted Cavanaugh, 28, as a conniving predator,
weary of being a single mother, who planned to murder Simone so she would be
free of her parental responsibilities.

“She is the one who
snuffed out that baby’s life,” Chudler told the five women and eight men on the
jury, as he stood pointing at Cavanaugh, who was sitting with her attorney at
the defense table. “She chose to do it because that’s what she wanted to
do…nothing made her do it but her own free will.”


Her attorney, Richard Convertino, told jurors that the
evidence would show a young woman so psychotic at the time that she was hearing
voices. “There is a different side to this tragedy, and those details are going
to compel you to find Shontelle Cavanaugh not guilty,” he said. “There is no
blame for this tragedy. This was a very sick woman who spiraled out of
control.”


Cavanaugh, a graduate of Oakland University, gave birth to
Simone in August 2004. Her family moved her home after the baby was born to help
take care of her.


She was diagnosed with postpartum depression and placed on
medication.

Her family members are expected to testify in the trial that
she grew increasingly ill, refusing to bathe or leave the house.


Her mother, Gina James, arrived home June 6, 2005, to find
Cavanaugh holding her baby’s lifeless body.


In testimony this morning, Pontiac firefighter and paramedic
Roman Prosser described how he arrived at the house with other paramedics and
found the baby not breathing on the living room floor, with James crying.
Cavanaugh, he said, was upstairs in a bedroom, gliding in a rocking chair.


“I needed to get her to look at me,” he said. “I was trying
to get a response from her. She kind of glanced at me, then looked away.”


Cavanaugh is charged with open murder, meaning jurors can
find her guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter.
Should they decide she was insane at the time, as her attorneys claim, they can
find her not guilty by reason of insanity.


There are typically 14 jurors hearing a criminal case. This
morning, Judge Rae Lee Chabot dismissed one juror after learning that he has an
embezzlement case pending in Oakland County Circuit Court.

Prosecutors rested
their case this morning against Shontelle Cavanaugh, 28, the Oakland University
graduate who smothered her baby while suffering postpartum depression.
This morning Oakland
County medical examiner Ljubisa Dragovic testified that an autopsy done on 9
month-old Simone Cavanaugh showed she had been smothered.


Defense attorney Richard Convertino plans to present a string
of witnesses, beginning this afternoon, who will testify that Cavanaugh was
seriously mentally ill at the time. A psychiatrist who examined her a few weeks
after the baby’s death determined that she was insane at the time.


Also this morning, Oakland County Circuit court judge Rae Lee
Chabot denied a defense motion to throw out the charges because Cavanaugh has
been denied a speedy trial. She has been in jail since June, 2005. Chabot said
the delays were the result of several changes of attorneys for both the defense
and prosecutors, problems with keeping Cavanaugh medicated so that she could
maintain competency, and procedural delays.


Cavanaugh, a former honor student with a degree in Science,
is charged with open murder and faces life in prison if convicted.

Jurors were led from the courtroom Thursday after the mother of a woman charged with smothering her
baby became too emotional to testify, sobbing when asked to describe finding the
baby lifeless in her daughter's arms.
After the jurors were gone, Gina James continued crying for several minutes as she sat in the witness
stand, surrounded by sobbing family members.
James' daughter, Shontelle Cavanaugh, 28, is on trial in Oakland County Circuit Court, charged
with open murder in the June 2005 death of her 9-month-old daughter Simone.
James, in an afternoon of emotional testimony, described how Cavanaugh, an honor student who earned a
scholarship and a bachelor's degree from Oakland University, began to
deteriorate in the weeks after her baby's birth: refusing to bathe, brush her
teeth or meet with friends. Her obstetrician diagnosed her with postpartum
depression and placed her on medications.
On June 6, 2005, James left the house in Pontiac for three hours and returned to find Cavanaugh on the
floor of an upstairs bedroom, holding the baby, who was not breathing.
"Simone had on a pink outfit," James said, as she began to cry. "Her hair was all combed and pretty."
Realizing something was wrong, she said, she asked Cavanaugh what happened.
"She wouldn't respond. She was staring at the wall," James said.
Defense attorney Richard Convertino has argued that Cavanaugh was insane at the time and should
be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Assistant prosecutor Brett Chudler
contends Cavanaugh was weary of being a parent and intentionally killed the child.

A woman jailed for nearly five years in the suffocation death of her
infant daughter soon could go free, after a jury on Monday found her not
guilty of murder. Oakland County jurors needed less than five
hours to find Shontelle Cavanaugh, 28, a former Oakland University honor
student, not guilty of first-degree murder and not guilty by reason of
insanity. She had been charged with first-degree premeditated
murder and felony murder in the July 2005 death."Congratulations," Circuit Judge Rae Lee Chabot told a beaming
Cavanaugh, as her family and friends wept a few feet away. But
Cavanaugh will remain in custody until it is determined whether she must
go to the state Center for Forensic Psychiatry for more treatment. Her
trial started in March after years of delays. The case hinged on
whether Cavanaugh was legally insane and not in control of her actions
when she covered her daughter's nose and mouth with her hand and
suffocated her. Defense attorney Richard Convertino said months
of postpartum depression caused Cavanaugh to suffer eating disorders,
made her unable to go to work or care for her child and experience a
psychotic episode. Diana Lynn Barnes, a family and marital
therapist from California, said Cavanaugh suffered postpartum psychosis
and should not be held accountable for her child's death. Assistant
Prosecutor Brett Chudler described Cavanaugh as a selfish and spoiled
woman who might suffer from mental illness but "that doesn't make her
legally insane." He stressed that psychiatrists who interviewed
Cavanaugh said she was able to distinguish right from wrong "before,
during and after" the child's death and exaggerated hallucinations and
hearing voices. Chudler said Cavanaugh, tired of being a single
mother with no social life and barely hanging onto a night department
store job she didn't like, had simply become weary of caring for her
daughter.