Indiana Supreme Court to take up Cal Township babysitter’s conviction in child’s death
The Indiana Supreme Court will take up whether a Calumet Township babysitter should have had her conviction thrown out when an 8-month-old baby girl died in her care.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office has instead asked if Trisha Woodworth should be convicted of a lesser charge — Level 6 felony neglect of a dependent.
Oral arguments are set for Sept. 12 at 9 a.m. CST in Indianapolis.
Woodworth, now 34, of Calumet Township, got a split verdict in a Lake County criminal case in July 2022.
She was watching her friend’s baby, 8-month-old Maci Moor, of Hammond, in April 2016, when the girl went limp.
Jurors acquitted Woodworth on aggravated battery and battery charges — i.e. hurting the child. She was convicted of Level 1 felony neglect of a dependent — i.e. for not calling 911 soon enough.
“I am left with sentencing a woman to between 20 to 40 years in prison for arguably, at the farthest stretch, a nine-minute delay in calling the ambulance,” Lake Superior Judge Samuel Cappas said then in court, according to filings.
He set the verdict aside and recused himself, so the case was transferred to another Lake County judge while on appeal. The State of Indiana appealed, saying Cappas “abused (his) discretion” in setting the case aside. Woodworth’s lawyers “cross-appealed” saying there was no evidence to convict.
The Indiana Court of Appeals overturned her conviction in January, though it admonished Cappas for the way he threw out the jury’s verdict.
In Rokita’s petition to the Indiana Supreme Court, his office argued there was evidence showing Woodworth may have waited either nine minutes, or over an hour and chose the explanation that lined up with her innocence. They asked for a conviction on Level 6 felony neglect.
Woodworth’s appellate lawyers Mark Bates and Brian Woodward countered the evidence was too “deficient” for the Level 1 felony neglect charge.
“Although this argument has sympathetic appeal for Maci’s family, it imposes a criminal conviction on a woman who was innocent of any crime,” they wrote.
At trial, prosecutors “presented absolutely no evidence” Woodworth put the baby “in a situation that endangered” her, Bates and Woodward wrote. The “theory” of an “hour delay” came from the detective’s notes, they argued.
Rokita’s lawyers argued Woodworth, at one point, told investigators she woke up the girl “around 10 a.m.” and her breathing turned “funny, and she just didn’t seem like herself.”
Additionally, he argued, Woodworth’s mother testified she “tried to wake” the baby up and “she wasn’t waking up.”
A paramedic testified Woodworth’s mother later said “this has been going on all day.”
However, at trial, Woodworth’s grandmother Patricia Thomas testified nothing obvious had happened before the child went limp.
Woodward called the child’s mother Megan Garner who told her to call 911, she said. Her granddaughter was “very nervous” standing on her porch.
“We were all nervous,” she said.
Lake County Sheriff’s Department officers responded to a residence about 1:30 p.m. on April 15, 2016 in the 2200 block of West 41st Avenue in Gary after Moor was breathing but unresponsive.
As first responders were preparing to transport Moor to a hospital, Woodworth told a detective that “she was the person responsible for watching Maci” and had noticed that “something wasn’t right” as Maci’s breathing “had become staggered” and she “would not wake up,” prompting her to call an ambulance, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Moor was transported to Methodist Northlake and then airlifted to the University of Chicago, according to the affidavit, where she died two days later. The Cook County Medical Examiner ruled her death a homicide caused by “closed head injuries consistent with ‘shaken baby syndrome,’” a release stated.
A medical expert called by the defense at trial disputed this.
