Decapitation of baby during ‘excessively forceful’ delivery ruled to be murder
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The death of a baby who was decapitated during delivery has been ruled to be a murder.
The state of Georgia’s medical examiner’s office said that the death of the baby boy, Treveon Taylor Jr, was a direct result of human action.
The Clayton County Medical Examiner’s Office found that the immediate cause of the boy’s death was a fracture of cervical vertebrae in the spine, known as a broken neck.
The parents, Jessica Ross and Trevon Isaiah Taylor Sr, sued the hospital and the doctor who delivered Treveon in July last year. They also accuse staff of propping his head back on his body, wrapped in a blanket, to cover up the decapitation.
The hospital has denied any wrongdoing.
Allegations made by Treveon’s parents in a lawsuit filed last August against the hospital in Riverdale, Georgia, appear to be confirmed by the findings of the medical examiner’s office.
‘They lied to us’
The parents claim that Dr Tracey St Julian, who delivered their son, was a member of a private practice and not employed by the hospital, and that she applied excessive force while trying to pull Treveon out of the birth canal.
“We just want justice for our son,” Mr Taylor said at a press conference on Wednesday in Atlanta.
“They lied to us, they ain’t let us touch him, we didn’t like it.”
The family has accused the hospital of lying to them, saying that they were not informed their son was decapitated during the birth and they were not allowed to touch him after delivery.
Ms Ross underwent a cesarean section to deliver the baby’s legs and body, but the head was delivered vaginally, according to Dr Roderick Edmond, the parents’ lawyer.
Ms Ross and Mr Taylor said they were only informed of the condition of death by the funeral home and not by the hospital.
Staff at the hospital reportedly encouraged the couple to have the baby cremated without performing an autopsy, Dr Edmond said, alleging an attempted cover-up.
“They wrapped the baby tightly in a blanket, propped the baby’s head up on a blanket,” Mr Edmond said at a news conference last year, adding they were “basically making it look like there was no decapitation”.
Only once the medical examiner took custody of the baby boy’s body was an autopsy performed.
The medical examiner’s office has referred the incident to police, who are investigating.
