Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,160
- Reaction score
- 7
Prosecution rests in Dallas County trial of man accused of severely injuring his baby son | Dallas-Fort Worth Crime News - News for Dallas, Texas - The Dallas Morning News
Dallas County prosecutors rested their case this afternoon in the trial of a man accused of injuring his son so badly that the baby is blind, deaf, paralyzed and not expected to live into adulthood.
David Coronado, 26, is on trial for injury to a child causing serious bodily injury and faces up to life in prison if convicted of causing his son’s injuries.
The baby was injured when he was 5 months old. He had 42 fractures when he was hospitalized in December 2008, according to testimony. His spinal cord was severed, and he had bite marks on his body. A doctor removed rib bones to create a new spine, according to testimony. The surgery did not fix the damage. It only prevented further injury.
The boy, now 2, has been adopted and is now David Lopez. He spends his days in the care of a nurse or his adoptive mother, who quit her job to care for him.
David’s nurse, Patricia Kumi, who has cared for him in the year and a half since his adoption, testified that it’s difficult to know what David feels because of his injuries.
Still, Kumi said, she wants him to have meaningful childhood experiences.
She sings to him, even though he can’t hear.
She plays with him and his light up toys, even though he can’t see.
When the weather cooperates, she bundles the boy up and takes him outside. Sometimes, she puts him in a wheelchair. But usually, she holds him tight.
“He needs some sunshine. He needs to know what the sun is,” Kumi told jurors. “I want David to experience what we experience: the cold and the warm.”
Several jurors wiped their eyes or shook their heads as Kumi stood in front of them with prosecutor Sherre Sweet, showing pictures of David.
“That’s my little David,” Kumi told jurors.
David sleeps up to 20 hours a day and suffers eight to 10 seizures a day. He does sometimes cry during the seizures, she said.
David, who cannot hold his neck up, is fed through a feeding tube into his intestines because his stomach can’t tolerate the tube delivering it there.
He vomits often and is in danger of choking on his own saliva because he cannot swallow.
Because David can’t move, his heart rate monitor reveals when he’s sleeping or awake, Kumi said. He also sometimes loudly snores while sleeping because of upper respiratory problems.
David’s birthmother, Ruthy Marie Chabolla, is also charged with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury for not stopping the abuse. Several of David’s fractures were healing and had not been treated when he was hospitalized.
Chabolla was called to testify earlier this week but invoked her Fifth
Amendment right not to incriminate herself.
The defense for Coronado is expected to begin presenting evidence this afternoon.
Dallas County prosecutors rested their case this afternoon in the trial of a man accused of injuring his son so badly that the baby is blind, deaf, paralyzed and not expected to live into adulthood.
David Coronado, 26, is on trial for injury to a child causing serious bodily injury and faces up to life in prison if convicted of causing his son’s injuries.
The baby was injured when he was 5 months old. He had 42 fractures when he was hospitalized in December 2008, according to testimony. His spinal cord was severed, and he had bite marks on his body. A doctor removed rib bones to create a new spine, according to testimony. The surgery did not fix the damage. It only prevented further injury.
The boy, now 2, has been adopted and is now David Lopez. He spends his days in the care of a nurse or his adoptive mother, who quit her job to care for him.
David’s nurse, Patricia Kumi, who has cared for him in the year and a half since his adoption, testified that it’s difficult to know what David feels because of his injuries.
Still, Kumi said, she wants him to have meaningful childhood experiences.
She sings to him, even though he can’t hear.
She plays with him and his light up toys, even though he can’t see.
When the weather cooperates, she bundles the boy up and takes him outside. Sometimes, she puts him in a wheelchair. But usually, she holds him tight.
“He needs some sunshine. He needs to know what the sun is,” Kumi told jurors. “I want David to experience what we experience: the cold and the warm.”
Several jurors wiped their eyes or shook their heads as Kumi stood in front of them with prosecutor Sherre Sweet, showing pictures of David.
“That’s my little David,” Kumi told jurors.
David sleeps up to 20 hours a day and suffers eight to 10 seizures a day. He does sometimes cry during the seizures, she said.
David, who cannot hold his neck up, is fed through a feeding tube into his intestines because his stomach can’t tolerate the tube delivering it there.
He vomits often and is in danger of choking on his own saliva because he cannot swallow.
Because David can’t move, his heart rate monitor reveals when he’s sleeping or awake, Kumi said. He also sometimes loudly snores while sleeping because of upper respiratory problems.
David’s birthmother, Ruthy Marie Chabolla, is also charged with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury for not stopping the abuse. Several of David’s fractures were healing and had not been treated when he was hospitalized.
Chabolla was called to testify earlier this week but invoked her Fifth
Amendment right not to incriminate herself.
The defense for Coronado is expected to begin presenting evidence this afternoon.
