Witnesses Claim Babys Death Must Be Homicide

WITNESSES CLAIM BABYS DEATH MUST BE HOMICIDE By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF Thursday, July 21, 2005 9:55 AM CDT

Testimony will continue today in the trial of a Pine Bluff woman charged in the 2004 death of a three-yearold. Rebecca Baker Jackson, 30, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Ari'yanna Jackson, who was called Ari'. The child was pronounced dead at Arkansas Children's Hospital at Little Rock after being flown there from Jefferson Regional Medical Center when X-rays determined the toddler had severe head injuries.

At the time of the child's death, Baker Jackson was the live-in girlfriend of Charles Jackson, the toddler's father. The two have since married. "The cause of death was cranial, cerebral injuries," State Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Kokes told the jury, "in layman's terms, severe injuries to the head and brain. The manner of death was homicide." Kokes believed the injuries were caused by "direct, blunt force trauma and not the result of a fall," as the defense is claiming. In statements to police, Baker Jackson said the child fell off a bicycle she was riding and hit her head, but then continued playing with other children at the house, ate and went to sleep. Chief Deputy Prosecutor Kyle Hunter said during his opening statement that the toddler died "two weeks beyond her third birthday of a five-inch long crack in the skull." "The testimony points to Rebecca Baker being the one that delivered that blow to the head," he said. Baker Jackson's sister, Brandi Lawson, told Deputy Prosecutor Maxie Kizer she had gone to Baker Jackson's house in the 2600-block of West 26th Avenue with several of her children to help Baker Jackson with her hair. Lawson said she left the house for a while, and when she returned saw a bandage on the girl's forehead and was told she had fallen off a bicycle. After leaving a second time, Lawson said she came back and Baker Jackson told her she had tried to wake up Ari'yanna but couldn't. "I went into the bedroom and turned her over and her eyes rolled back in her head," said Lawson, who also told the jury that she had medical training and was a certified nursing assistant. "Her breathing was labored, and my immediate reaction was to get her to the hospital." Baker Jackson took the girl to JRMC, where Mike Grimes, the charge nurse in the emergency room, said he began treating her. "She was not emotional," Grimes said. "She wasn't crying. It was kind of a flat effect." After the girl was flown to Little Rock, one of the doctors who treated her was Dr. Teresa Esquivel, a pediatrician with 23 years experience. "She was mechanically ventilated because she was not able to breathe on her own," Esquivel said. "We tried to stabilize her but she was unresponsive and not aware of anything we were doing." Esquivel said she suspected "Shaken Baby Syndrome" and reported her suspicions to the Arkansas Child Abuse Hotline.

"I felt the trauma was inflicted and not accidental," Esquivel said. Before testimony ended Wednesday, Willie Harris, the 11-year-old son of Baker Jackson testified that Lawson had told him to tell police he saw the child fall off a bicycle and helped the girl up. "That wasn't true, was it?" Kizer asked the boy. "No," he said. "My Aunt Brandi told me to tell them that." Harris also claimed to have seen Baker Jackson hit the toddler in the head with a belt on a previous occasion but told Baker Jackson's attorney Tom Devine that he was outside and didn't see anything the day the incident happened. If Baker Jackson is convicted of first-degree murder, she could be sentenced to 10 to 40 years or life in prison.