A jury in June was hung after eight hours of deliberations and Judge Robert Peeler declared a mistrial.
Vavul-Roediger specializes in determining when a child has been abused. She said she was shocked that Bryce survived after sustaining serious brain injuries.
“He had deep, deep white matter injury to his brain,” Vavul-Roediger testified Tuesday. “There is no way this child had this level of global brain trauma from a fall from a dining room chair.”
Prosecutors argue Milby slammed Bryce’s head onto something soft like a mattress. Milby’s attorney Jon Paul Rion has suggested the toddler’s injury occurred when the boy fell off a chair earlier in the day or during some other mishaps that befell him days or weeks earlier.
Kleiner, who performed the craniotomy that saved Bryce’s life, testified that his diagnosis was the boy suffered an acute subdural hemorrhage, meaning his brain injuries could not have occurred over time.
During questioning, Rion asked Kleiner if an injury could have been sustained if the boy fell from farther than a 17-inch-tall chair seat. Kleiner testified that it could. Rion later explained that was a significant point because the toddler’s head wasn’t on the chair seat, but it was higher up.
When Peeler asked Kleiner if he was paid for his testimony, the doctor said no.
“If anything I’m here as an advocate for my patient who is now in a chronic vegetative state, and will never come out of a chronic vegetative state,” Kleiner said, his voice shaking. “If you could see what this child looks like, it has been so awful… He will not speak, he will not interact, he will not talk, he will not walk. He’ll be fed through a feeding tube, and he will just vegetate for as long as he is taken care of.”
The trial resumes Wednesday and is expected to last all week.
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