REBECCA McDANIEL - 18 Months (2010) - Charleston WV

A South Charleston man has been charged with child abuse causing death after his girlfriend's 18-month-old daughter suffered a skull fracture while in his care. Rebecca McDaniel died Sunday from her injuries at Charleston Area Medical Center's Women and Children's Hospital. South Charleston police were alerted to her injuries Friday and went to the hospital, where she was then unresponsive and on a ventilator. Rebecca had a skull fracture and recorded no brain activity while in the hospital, police said. Meredith Bush, the child's mother, told police that she and her daughter lived with her boyfriend, Larry Allen Hayes Jr., 21, at a Fifth Avenue home in South Charleston. She told police that she'd last seen her daughter at 8 a.m. Thursday when Hayes dropped her off for work at IHOP in South Charleston, according to a complaint filed in Kanawha Magistrate Court. The woman told police the girl was healthy and behaving normally when she left her in Hayes' care, police said. She sent Hayes a text message at about 2 p.m. to tell him she was ready to be picked up from work. She said he never mentioned anything about the girl being injured, although they'd exchanged text messages throughout the day.
Bush said while she was waiting for Hayes, he called to tell her something was wrong with the child. When he arrived at the restaurant she noticed Rebecca was unresponsive and not breathing. She immediately began to perform CPR. Police interviewed Hayes Friday and Monday about the incident. He told officers Friday that he was the only person with the child from the time he dropped Bush off at the restaurant until he picked her up. He said he put the child in the car seat and told her to go to sleep when they left to pick Bush up. Hayes told police he noticed the girl leaning forward in the car seat as he was turning onto Trace Fork from Corridor G and that he shook her foot to wake her, but she did not move. His story changed in the Monday interview. He said he had been carrying the child down the stairs at their home when he fell from about the fifth stair up from the bottom, landing on top of the child, the complaint said. He said he didn't tell police or notify any physicians what happened. An autopsy performed on the child Monday at the office of the state Medical Examiner showed Rebecca's injuries were sustained from multiple blunt force impacts to her head, which caused multiple subdural hematomas. Examiners also found a cut inside her lip. The injuries likely happened not long before she was discovered unresponsive. Police said Hayes explanation of the girl's injuries wasn't consistent to what the medical examiner found. He admitted to being the only person with the child the day she was injured. Hayes was arrested Monday and is being held at South Central Regional Jail on $500,000 cash only bond. His preliminary hearing will be held at 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 14.

If dealing with the death of her baby girl wasn’t tough enough, now police are telling Meredith Bush her fiancé could be responsible. Just days before his 22nd birthday, Larry Hayes of South Charleston is behind bars. He is charged with child abuse causing death. "She was with him. She apparently loved him. They were engaged. She trusted him," Detective C.A. Cook with the South Charleston Police Department said. But that trust may have gone out the window. Police arrested Hayes in connection with 18-month-old Rebecca McDaniel’s death. He was watching her when she suffered serious injuries, but told police "he did not know of or cause any accidents involving the child." "Just because he said it doesn't make it true. Medical facts are medical facts," Cook said. The autopsy revealed Rebecca’s death was caused by "multiple blunt force impacts to the head," and police point the finger of blame at Hayes. They say he changed his stories drastically; at first, saying he didn't notice anything was wrong until they were in the car. A couple of days later he said he had fallen on the steps and landed on top of her, but detectives aren't buying that one either. “None of this could have happened the way he says it happened, according to our medical facts,” Cook said.

Larry Allen Hayes, Jr. 22, has been charged with the death of an
18-month-old girl who suffered a massive skull fracture and multiple
bunt force trauma to the head, later dying from the injuries.

A South Charleston man has been indicted in the death of an 18-month-old girl. Larry Allen Hayes, Jr., 22, has been indicted for the death of a child by a custodian by child abuse. According to a news release from the Kanawha County Prosecuting
Attorney's office, the 18-month-old girl was in Hayes' sole care for the
day while the child's mother was at work. The child was returned by Hayes non-responsive and in cardiac arrest, the news release states. The child suffered a massive skull fracture and multiple blunt force
trauma to the head and later died from the injuries. Hayes allegedly
never called 911 for help. Hayes will be arraigned before Circuit Judge Paul Zakaib at 10 a.m. on Jan. 28. Hayes faces up to 40 years in prison.

A man accused in the death of an 18-month-old baby girl is scheduled to go on trial next week.

The trial of Larry Hayes, Jr., was scheduled to begin Monday in Kanawha
County Circuit Court but was postponed a week to left the defendant's
expert witness review some of the prosecution's evidence.
Hayes, 21, is charged with child abuse resulting in death after the death of his live-in girlfriend’s child.

The child, Rebecca McDaniel, died last Oct. after she was taken to CAMC Women and Children's hospital.
The girl allegedly suffered the injuries while in the care of Hayes. Her
mother was reportedly at work at the time of the incident.
Police say Hayes called the mother, Meredith Bush, while she was at work and told her something was wrong with the child.

Police say Hayes originally claimed nothing happened to the child while he was
watching her. Later, he changed his story, saying he fell down a
flight of stairs while carrying the child.

Kanawha County Circuit Judge Paul Zakaib will preside over the trial.

http://www.58wchs.com/includes/news_items/7/news_items_more.php?id=11041§ion_id=7

Aug. 24--CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A tearful mother testified in court
Wednesday that her 18-month old daughter was fine when she went to work
September 30 at IHOP, but blue and not breathing when her boyfriend
brought her to her later in the day.

Meredith Bush of South Charleston told a jury that Larry Allen Hayes,
21, called her as he was pulling into the restaurant parking lot about
2:30 p.m. that day, telling her something was wrong with the child.

The girl was unresponsive, despite attempts to revive her with CPR, and
was disconnected from a ventilator a few days later at a local hospital.

Hayes is charged with child abuse resulting in death and is on trial
this week in Kanawha Circuit Court. He has denied that he hurt the girl.

Bush sometimes was overcome with emotion as she told the jury about that day.

"I came running out of the building, and I tried to get Becca out of the
car seat and laid her on the concrete," Bush said. "To try to give her
CPR.

"Her lips were blue," Bush said, weeping. "And she was cold."

Another IHOP employee, Jamar Mosely, told the jury he called 911. South
Charleston firemen, who were eating lunch at another nearby restaurant,
responded immediately, he said.

Mosely said blood poured from the girl's nose and mouth while Hayes attempted CPR.

While the girl was being transported to the hospital, Bush said she and Hayes traveled in another vehicle.

"I kept asking him what happened," she said. "And he said it was a normal day and she just collapsed."
Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Meadows held up clothing Rebecca
McDaniel was wearing that day -- a red shirt and denim bib overalls
decorated with cherries.

Later, Meadows exhibited photographs taken at the child's autopsy. Judge
Paul Zakaib, who is presiding over the trial, allowed the photographs
to be shown despite the objections of public defender Richard Holicker.
Holicker called the photographs "gruesome and grotesque."

Family members lowered their heads, and at one point Bush left the
courtroom. At the defense table, Hayes also cried and tissues were
handed to him.

One of those photographs showed a distinct fish-hook shaped fracture,
which a medical examiner said measured 5 1/4 inches in length, on the
little girl's skull.

In other pictures, the doctor pointed out numerous bruises and cuts on the girl's face and head.

Meadows told the jury in her opening argument that the girl died not of
an accidental injury, as Hayes has claimed, but of blunt force trauma.

Dr. Alan Mock said his autopsy results also showed the girl had
significant retinal hemorrhaging, which indicates a blow to the head and
an injury to the brain.

Bush testified that the girl had an accident several days before she
died, an incident involving tripping on a bottom stair and a large
plastic ride-on toy.

She said she took Rebecca to an emergency room then to be checked when
she injured her knee. But she didn't believe the girl had a head injury
and doctors only treated her knee, she said.

Testimony is expected to continue Thursday.
http://www.dailymail.com/ap/ApTopStories/201108241391?page=2&build=cache

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A South Charleston man was convicted Monday of
child abuse causing death, after jurors found he inflicted blunt-force
impacts to the skull of his fiance's toddler daughter, causing her
death.

Larry Allen Hayes Jr., 22, was convicted after a week-long trial that
extended into Saturday. Hayes held his face in his hands as, one by one,
each juror confirmed his or her verdict.

A medical examiner testified last week that blunt-force trauma caused a
snaking 5 1/4 inch fracture in 1-year-old Rebecca McDaniel's skull,
which claimed her life last October.

Both Hayes' and McDaniel's family members and friends gave out muffled sobs as they sat in the gallery.

"I think this is a horrible injustice," Susan Adkins, the mother of an
ex-girlfriend of Hayes, told reporters after the decision. "I don't know
how they could come up with this verdict.

"They have just convicted an innocent man of something he didn't do."

Tom McDaniel, the girl's grandfather, thanked prosecutors and investigators for their efforts in the case.

"We're glad that the verdict came through," McDaniel said. "It was justice for Becca."
Hayes faces up to 40 years in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 28.

On Sept. 30, Hayes played video games in his living room all morning in a
South Charleston home he shared with his fiancée, Meredith Bush, the
toddler's mother. Bush had left for work earlier that morning.

Hayes has maintained that nothing out of the ordinary happened that day.
He said he kept an eye on McDaniel, at one point making her some pizza
bread and giving her some gummy worms.

He said he did not notice anything wrong with the girl until that
afternoon, as he drove to the IHOP on Corridor G, where Bush worked. He
looked in the rearview mirror and saw that Rebecca was slumped over in
her car seat.

On Friday, Dr. Manuel Caceres, medical director at CAMC Women's and
Children's Hospital, testified that McDaniel's injuries were consistent
with shaken baby syndrome with impact -- meaning that Hayes probably
shook the child before her head struck a hard surface, like a floor or
table.

But Dr. Thomas Young, a forensic pathologist based out of Kansas,
testified via video that the child's fracture, which covered over a
quarter of her skull, could have been caused by an accident that she had
several days before her death, when she fell from a stair in her home
and hit her head on a plastic, toy four-wheeler.

Bush, who was watching Rebeeca at the time, immediately took her to the
hospital for what the doctors had assumed was a leg injury, said Hayes'
lawyer, Richard Hollicker. They never scanned the girl's head despite
her recent complaints to her mother that her head hurt, Holicker said in
his opening statement.

Caceres asserted that McDaniel's fracture had formed two hours prior to
when Hayes and Bush rushed her to the hospital, while Young testified
that the injury had shown signs of healing -- indicating that the girl's
fall onto the toy four-wheeler days before could have caused the fatal
wound.
http://wvgazette.com/News/201108290824?page=2&build=cache

A Charleston man was sentenced
Friday to 40 years in prison and 10 years supervised release after being
convicted in August of child abuse resulting in death.

A Kanawha County jury found Larry Hayes Jr., 22, guilty in connection to the death
of his former fiance's 18-month-old daughter.
Hayes was caring for Rebecca McDaniel, the daughter of Meredith Bush, last October.
That's when the girl suffered a severe head wound.

During Hayes' trial, prosecutors
called several expert witnesses to testify saying the girl's injuries
were consistent with physical abuse.

Hayes first told investigators
that the girl slumped over in her car seat. Later, he changed the story
to say he fell down the steps with the girl in his arms.

The girl became unconscious last September while Hayes drove to an IHOP. Four days later, the girl died.

Forty years in prison was the maximum sentence.
http://www.58wchs.com/includes/news_items/7/news_items_more.php?id=18801§ion_id=7

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A man convicted of killing his girlfriend's little girl was back in court Monday asking for his jury verdict to be overturned.

Larry Allen Hayes, 23, always has insisted he did not hurt 18-month-old Rebecca McDaniel. But a jury found him guilty of child abuse resulting in death last August.

Richard Holicker, his court-appointed defense attorney, asked Kanawha Circuit Judge Paul Zakaib to acquit Hayes based on errors he believed occurred during his trial.

Zakaib refused. Hayes intends to appeal his case to the West Virginia Supreme Court.

Holicker said jurors were wrongly exposed to media coverage of the case when prosecutors played a tape of a jailhouse telephone conversation between Hayes and his father. The lawyer also said a medical examiner called to testify by the state did not accurately state his credentials and the judge would not bring the doctor back to court for clarification.

He said the jury was unjustly prejudiced by autopsy photographs of the victim and by a toy car brought into the courtroom.

Holicker also said he interviewed jurors after their verdict and one of them said she thought the girl's death was an accident but found him guilty because he was the last one with her.

Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Meadows pointed out that Holicker raised all of those objections during the trial and they already had been denied by the judge.

Hayes' taped interviews with police were shown to jurors at his trial. He denied knowing how the girl suffered her injuries but at one point indicated he slipped on the stairs while carrying her.

Hayes drove the child to her mother's place of employment in October 2010, calling her on the way to say she was not responsive. She was bleeding from the nose and blue, and trial testimony indicated she had a 5 1/2-inch skull fracture.

http://www.dailymail.com/News/201201090177

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A judge on Monday denied a South Charleston man's request for a new trial on charges of child abuse causing death.

In August, a jury found that Larry Allen Hayes Jr., 21, caused the death of Rebecca McDaniel, the 18-month-old child of the woman he was living with. According to prosecutors, Hayes shook the girl, causing her to strike her head on a hard surface.

On Monday, Kanawha County assistant public defender Richard Holicker, told Judge Paul Zakaib Jr. that several errors during the trial warrant a vacated verdict and a new trial for Hayes.

Among those errors, Holicker said that the judge violated his client's right to face his accusers by refusing to enforce a subpoena for a doctor who had testified that examinations of the toddler pointed to signs of blunt force trauma.

Holicker cross-examined Dr. Allen Mock for about an hour and a half, but later learned from his own expert witness that Mock's credentials were in question. Mock ignored Holicker's subsequent subpoena to appear in court, Holicker said.

"We had an absolute right to call Dr. Mock," He said.

Holicker also argued that at least one juror in the case appeared to have voted Hayes guilty even though he acknowledged that the toddler's death was probably an accident, according to an affidavit authored by an investigator for the public defender's office.

The juror also said that the state "did not prove that Larry did anything to Rebecca McDaniel," according to the affidavit.

Kanawha County assistant prosecutor Jennifer Meadows said that a juror cannot be impeached, and a case cannot be set aside, based on what happens during the deliberation process.

During the trial, Holicker repeatedly objected to prosecutors showing photos of McDaniel's autopsy to the jurors. Most of the photos, some of which included depictions of the girl's brain on a tray, were gratuitously gruesome and only prejudiced the jury, Holicker said.

Meadows said the state's medical experts could not have given effective testimony without using the photos as visual aid.

In September 2010, Hayes was watching the girl while her mother, Meredith Bush, was at work.

According to court records, Hayes said Rebecca was acting normally all day. When he went to pick up Bush from work, the girl appeared to be sleeping in the back seat of the car. He noticed a problem only when he reached back and shook her foot and the girl did not respond.

Hayes later admitted to police, in what Holicker contends was a coerced confession, that he fell down the stairs while holding the girl. Her injuries caused a large fracture that spanned more than five inches on her skull, prosecutors said.

Zakaib denied Holicker's motion. Holicker said he plans to appeal the conviction.

http://wvgazette.com/News/201201090141

it amazes me how a child this young can get so injured and no one knows how it happened?