A Forsyth County jury has acquitted a 21-year-old man of charges that he physically abused a 2-year-old whom he was baby-sitting, leaving the boy brain-damaged and paralyzed.
The verdict came Tuesday afternoon after a weeklong trial in Forsyth Superior Court. The jury found Marcus Bradley Holt not guilty of felony child abuse inflicting serious bodily injury.
Holt, a friend of the boy's mother, was living temporarily with the boy's family in a house on Leinbach Drive in Winston-Salem. He was baby-sitting the child, Ashton Cartrette, who is now 4, on Sept. 29, 2008, while the mother was at work.
Assistant District Attorney Kia Chavious alleged during the trial that Holt got angry because he had to change the child's diapers for a third time and that he threw the child against a love seat. Ashton's head hit the wooden frame of the love seat, causing brain swelling and bleeding, she said. The child had to have part of his skull removed to keep him alive.
"I'm angry. I'm very angry," Toni Duncan, the child's grandmother, said about the verdict. "They need to bury him under the jail. To let the boy walk out, it was wrong."
Duncan said she didn't attend the trial because she was too upset.
Paul James, Holt's attorney, had medical experts testify during the trial that Ashton's injuries could have been caused by second-impact syndrome, a rare condition in which a second blow to the head happens before the first concussion heals. When that happens, the second injury causes rapid brain swelling.
James said that testimony during the trial showed that the boy hit his head on a banister a week before the incident. Also, two days before the incident, Ashton was head-butted by a 12-year-old at a wedding, James said.
Holt also had never shown any animosity toward Ashton and there was no evidence that he meant to severely harm the child, James said.
Chavious said that the mother never saw her son get hit at the wedding and didn't notice any injury. The child acted fine and showed no signs of brain injury, and the mother never sought medical treatment.
Holt gave several statements to police before saying that he did throw Ashton against the love seat, Chavious said.
James said it appears that the jurors were convinced that Ashton's injuries were caused by second-impact syndrome.
"It's just a tragic case all around because you have a brain-damaged child," he said. "A sole healthy 2-year-old is now a brain-damaged 4-year-old child. He will have the capacity of no more than a 10-year-old."
Chavious said that Ashton is not only brain damaged and paralyzed, but he is also legally blind. He requires 24-hour care and lives with his grandfather and his grandfather's wife because Ashton's mother cannot financially take care of her son, she said.
"Life is never going to be the same for this child," she said. "Whatever this child was going to be is not going to be a reality. The case has been traumatic for the family, and it's a devastating loss."
mhewlett@wsjournal.com
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