Trial begins in case of alleged near-fatal child abuse
Fayette County jurors heard testimony from prosecution witnesses on Monday in the trial of a man accused of causing near-fatal head trauma to a 20-month-old Smithfield child in October.
Raymond Matteson, 35, was charged with aggravated and simple assault, as well as reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child, after police learned from doctors at UPMC-Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh that the bleeding found on Chase Hay’s brain was likely caused by the child having been shaken while in Matteson’s care.
Dr. Adelaide Eichman testified that she treated Hay at Children’s Hospital after he was transported by helicopter from Uniontown Hospital on Oct. 4. Hay had a “very large” amount of bleeding on the right side of his brain below the derma that protects the organ, Eichman testified. She added that the right side of the child’s brain swelled so significantly, it shifted into the left side of his skull and even down into the spinal column.
Tests also revealed that Hay had a lacerated liver, bruised bowel and retinal hemorrhaging, Eichman told the jury. “Basically, his retina had been detached,” she said.
Assistant District Attorney Mark Mehalov asked what type of force would be required to cause those types of injuries, and Eichman testified it would have been significant. “They don’t get that from playing,” she added.
“These injuries did not appear to be accidental,” Eichman testified. She said brain swelling or bleeding would not happen spontaneously in a normal child, which, prior to Oct. 4, Hay appeared to be.
“I believe Chase was a victim of abusive head trauma,” Eichman told the jury.
Doctors inserted breathing and feeding tubes into Hay, as well as tubes to drain the fluid and blood that amassed around the child’s brain, Eichman testified.
“I thought he was going to die,” she said. “He was very, very, very injured.”
Matteson’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Deanna Fahringer, asked if it was possible that Hay had an underlying brain injury before he was put in Matteson’s care on Oct. 4, and Eichman testified that if he did have such an injury, he wouldn’t have been behaving normally, as his mother testified that he was before she left for work.
“If he had had that (injury) the day before, he would have died without medical care,” Eichman testified. “He would have stopped breathing.”
Eichman told the jury her suspicion of child abuse was heightened by the fact that Hay had suffered a broken right femur weeks before the head injury, and that Matteson’s story about how the break happened didn’t make medical sense to her. Eichman testified Matteson told her he was babysitting Hay on Sept. 20 when the child fell down about five stairs. She testified that, although it was possible for Hay to have broken his femur that way, Matteson’s claim that the child walked away from the incident didn’t add up, because a person with a broken femur would not be able to walk.
According to the testimony of John Reaggle Jr., Matteson’s brother, who was in the home in Smithfield on Oct. 4, Hay was fine when his mother left for work. Reaggle testified he went upstairs to watch a movie and when he came back down, Hay was purple and unresponsive.
Reaggle testified Matteson was shaking Hay to try to wake him, and that he next tried to revive the boy with cold water. While that was happening, Reaggle said he called 911.
Hay’s mother, Lori Brundege of Smithfield, told the jury that her son was getting over a bad cough, and that Matteson told her while the two were driving to Children’s Hospital that he removed mucus from the boy’s airway while waiting for paramedics to arrive.
She testified that Matteson urged her to say she was at home in the laundry room when Hay’s condition deteriorated, because “it would look bad on him” otherwise.
Brundege said she told hospital staff that story at first, because she was scared and confused. She also testified that she had never witnessed Matteson strike Hay or either of her two daughters in the short time she had been romantically involved with him, and that Matteson was never abusive toward her personally.
According to Brundege, Hay is not able to walk, talk, crawl or eat by himself currently. “He’s like an 8- or 9-month-old right now,” she said.
The prosecution rested its case Monday and the defense’s case will be presented to jurors beginning at 9:30 a.m. today before Senior Judge Gerald R. Solomon.