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Nanny guilty of capital murder in baby's death
Courtesy of Collin County jail - Ada Betty Cuadros Fernandez, 33, on Friday was found guilty of capital murder in the 2005 death of a 14-month-old boy. She was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
By Dan Eakin, deakin@starlocalnews.com
Ada Betty Cuadros Fernandez on Friday was found guilty of capital murder in the 2005 death of a 14-month-old boy in McKinney.
The verdict requires an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The trial began Monday in the Ceremonial Courtroom at the Collin County Courthouse, with James Fry, a visiting judge from Grayson County, presiding.
Defense attorneys Roy Reeves and Pamela Lakatos had contended that the boy died from an accidental fall.
Cuadros Fernandez was convicted in 2006, but an appeals court ruled mistakes had occurred during the trial and overturned that verdict in late 2009. Cuadros Fernandez was sent to a state prison in 2006 but was returned to the Collin County Detention Center in January 2010 after the appeals court ruling.
Ida Cover, who was a McKinney police officer in 2005, testified Wednesday that she interviewed Cuadros Fernandez at length after the boy had been taken by ambulance first to a McKinney hospital and then by helicopter to Children's Medical Center in Dallas on Oct. 13, 2005. The boy was pronounced dead two days later.
The jury heard a recording of the conversation between Cover and Cuadros Fernandez. The first part of the interview was very congenial, with the nanny telling Cover about the events earlier in the day.
However, Cover admitted that she became "confrontational" after Cuadros Fernandez began changing the details about how the child had been injured.
She said the nanny at first said the child had vomited after eating spaghetti and later gave different versions of how the child was injured. She had said the boy had fallen from the top of a counter, and also that he had bumped his head on a door.
"I felt, because she was blatantly lying, that I had to get confrontational," Cover said. "The injuries were not consistent with the explanations she had given."
Late Wednesday, Dr. Darshan Phatak, who had conducted an autopsy of the child, said he found three areas of injuries in the child's brain.
John Plunkett, a pathologist, testified for the defense Thursday and said he had thoroughly examined all medical reports on the child from the ambulance and two hospitals.
He said the boy died of injuries that could be classified as "low velocity."
He said that while the severe injuries sustained by the boy could have come from a fall from the counter, it would be unusual. He also said one fall could cause more than one injury to his brain because his head may have rotated once it hit the floor.
Plunkett also testified that there were no reports of outside injuries to the boy's temple in any of the medical records.
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