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Defense expert testifies on fatal injury
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A defense expert testified in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Wednesday that the injury that led to the death of a 15-month-old boy in December 2012 could have come from a fall down the stairs.
Dr. Joyce Ophaven testified before Judge Shirley Christian that the injuries suffered by the child was blunt-force trauma and they could have been inflicted in a noncriminal manner.
“I can’t say what it [the cause] was,” Dr. Ophaven said. “All I can say is it’s entirely consistent with a fall.”
Larry Dawson, 26, of Wesley Avenue, is on trial on a charge of murder and two counts of child endangerment in the death of the boy, Rayvon Stewart, his son. An autopsy revealed the child died from blunt-force trauma to the back of the head. Prosecutors charged Dawson because Rayvon was in his care at the time he died.
His defense attorney, Joseph Gardner, has contended that the injury that killed Rayvon was caused by an act that was not criminal, suggesting that a fall down the steps inside Dawson’s Oregon Avenue apartment sometime the day he died killed him.
Testimony began before Judge Christian on Tuesday after a jury was chosen Monday.
Testimony given Tuesday said that Dawson told police and doctors treating Rayvon at Akron Children’s Hospital that Rayvon had been napping for several hours when Dawson discovered the baby was not breathing.
Dr. Ophaven testified that pathologists doing the autopsy on Rayvon failed to take tissue samples from other parts of his head that could have shown the injury was conducive to a fall.
The doctor who treated Rayvon when he was taken to Akron testified Tuesday that the injury that suffered Rayvon was severe and could have been caused only by heavy trauma, although he admitted under cross examination that the injury could have been caused in a way that was not criminal.
That doctor did say, however, that there was no way that Rayvon’s injury could have been caused by a fall.
Closing arguments in the case are expected today.