By Curtis Krueger, Times Staff Writer
Friday, August 27, 2010
LARGO — Tenesia Brown, the former St. Petersburg foster mother accused of shaking a baby to death, decided not to testify in her own behalf Friday afternoon.
Her defense rested its case, and prosecutors began their closing arguments.
Earlier Friday in Brown's murder trial, a neurosurgeon on the faculty of Georgetown and George Washington universities testified that he sees no evidence the baby, Lazon Gulley, was shaken or otherwise injured in the head.
"I don't know that this child was a victim of head trauma at all," Dr. Ronald Uscinski said.
He said the evidence he reviewed indicates that when the boy's heart stopped for several minutes on March 3, 2006, it caused his brain to shrink. This may have led to bleeding beneath the layer around his brain called the dura. Although this type of injury often occurs because of trauma, there is no evidence that happened in this case, he said.
Uscinski said studies have proven that a person cannot exert enough force to cause such injuries to a baby by shaking alone. He is among a group of physicians who don't believe in the "shaken baby syndrome" diagnosis.
Earlier in the trial, the medical director for Pinellas County's child protection team said the boy died from "abusive head trauma," which she said is now the preferred term for shaken baby syndrome. Brown, the foster mother, was with the child just before he was taken to the hospital.