Mom on trial for shaking baby, refuses plea

YOUNGSTOWN — A tearful Sarah Shumar testified that she refused a plea bargain in a shaken baby case involving her 11-month-old son because, “I don’t want to make a deal and lose my children.”

Shumar, 23, of Oregon Avenue, went on trial Tuesday on a charge of endangering children after doctors determined that her son suffered a permanent brain injury in late March from shaken baby syndrome.

“If I don’t have my children, there’s no reason for living,” she said, referring to her 4-year-old son, as well as the now-18-month-old who suffered the injury. Both are living apart from her, the older boy staying with Shumar’s mother and the younger boy in foster care.

Shumar’s defense team called on a Washington D.C. brain surgeon who testified that the injury didn’t come from being shaken and might have been the result of an injury the boy suffered during birth or from seizures.

Meanwhile, under questioning by one of her attorneys, Heidi Hanni, Shumar discussed the heroin addiction that gripped her from the time she was a 15-year-old student at Boardman High School until about a year ago and said she “really hated” herself for abusing drugs while pregnant with both boys.

Read more in Wednesday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com