By Alexandra Zayas, Times Staff Writer
Friday, September 24, 2010
TAMPA — The fate of a father accused of murder is now in the hands of a Hillsborough jury.
For four days, jurors heard evidence that Donald Dankert rushed into an emergency room on Dec. 19, 2003, clutching an infant with no pulse.
They heard about the extensive injuries to 4-month-old Dylan — bruises, bleeding, lacerated intestines. They heard Dankert, 27, say he dropped the baby. And they heard a medical examiner say that didn't add up.
Jurors don't have to decide the killing was premeditated to convict the defendant of first-degree murder. The prosecution's theory is felony murder, which means the baby died in the commission of another felony, aggravated child abuse.
On Friday, assistant public defender Theda James directed blame at the admitting hospital. University Community Hospital decided to airlift the baby to Tampa General Hospital for surgery. The baby had to wait for a helicopter, and because a surgeon wasn't available at TGH, then had to be transferred to St. Joseph's Hospital. She said an ambulance could've transferred the baby in nine minutes; instead, as his intestines leaked poison into his body, Dylan got to another hospital an hour after a doctor made the decision.
She said there was no doubt Dankert injured the baby. But she called it an accident and said the hospital wasted valuable time.
Assistant state attorney Jalal Harb said there is no evidence to suggest bad judgment on the part of the hospital. He focused on Dylan's injuries.
"You've seen the photos," he said.
He called juror attention to a rug with fresh blood on it. "It's very possible this kid was being stomped on that area rug," he said.
Dankert told jurors Thursday that he dropped Dylan when a dog startled him, then he jerked up his knee to break the fall. A medical examiner said the boy endured more than one fatal blow to the abdomen and that it would have happened prior to what Dankert described.
The baby's mother, Tanya Gruce, is a paralegal. Dankert stayed home with the baby. Gruce said she urged Dankert at 11 a.m. to take Dylan to the doctor after Dankert stopped by her work and she realized the baby, who had exhibited a 99-degree fever, felt hotter. The infant was moaning. She said she sometimes had to nag Dankert to do what she said, so she called him three or four times to make sure he made an appointment.
The last time, she said, Dankert got mad and hung up on her.
He never made the appointment. He first paid the water bill, then said he drove home to make the doctor's appointment, and was getting ready to do it when he dropped the baby.
Harb suggested Dankert didn't want to make the appointment because he didn't want a doctor to see the abuse, which he thinks happened some time before 11 a.m.
"By then," Harb said, "that child was on the course of no return... By then, his scrotum was beginning to change color and size... The child was bleeding... The child had contusions to his abdomen. And the defendant was hoping, no question, that that would go away. He realized that that wasn't going away. What did he do? At that point, he had no choice but to go to the emergency room."
Harb raised his voice and looked down at the defendant.
"Mr. Dankert," he said, "that was way too late. That was way too late for Dylan Dankert."
Alexandra Zayas can be reached at azayas@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3354.