Trial begins for Cheyenne mother accused of killing baby

April 05--CHEYENNE -- It may never be clear what killed a 16-month-old boy in April 2017.

Prosecutors argued Wednesday that Sabrina Sawicki, then 25, grabbed her 16-month-old son, violently shook him and hit his head against a solid object, resulting in so-called "abusive head trauma."

"She viciously shook (him) like a rag doll, slammed his head against an immovable object and caused his untimely death," said prosecutor John Brodie said in his opening statement.

Sawicki's attorneys contended that the mother left the boy, referred to in trial testimony as "KT," in the bathtub with his brother. It's possible he hit his head, and he probably drowned, the attorneys said.

"What the defense intends to show you ... is that this was a tragic, tragic accident," Sawicki's attorney Cassie Craven said.

In the coming days, a jury of nine women and five men will listen to about a dozen experts and witnesses. They'll hear questioning and cross-examination, and they'll ultimately have to decide whether to convict Sawicki of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.

Jurors heard the first witnesses for the state Wednesday -- first responders and medical professionals.

All of them agreed on one thing: When they arrived at Sawicki's home at 3400 South Greeley Highway just after 9:30 p.m., the boy wasn't breathing. He didn't have a pulse.

Sawicki performed CPR at the instruction of a dispatcher at the Laramie County Combined Communications Center.

Laramie County Fire District 1 and American Medical Re-sponse professionals took over next, keeping the boy's lungs pumping using a bag valve mask in the back of an ambulance.

When the ambulance arrived at Cheyenne Regional Medical center, the boy's heart started beating faintly.

Emergency room nurses, doctors and specialists took over next, examining the boy and running tests.

Carol Wright Becker, an emergency room doctor at CRMC, testified she didn't see any outward trauma such as bruises and scrapes.

But the boy's pupils were dilated, indicating that his brain wasn't working properly, and blood tests revealed he had suffered from cardiac arrest, Wright Becker said.

A CT scan also "found evidence of blood on the brain," so "something had occurred that made the child's brain bleed," Wright Becker said. Another witness is expected to testify to the specifics of those findings later in the trial.

The boy was eventually transported to Children's Hospital Colorado, where he was removed from life support four days later, according to court documents.

Wednesday's proceedings started later than expected because of a dispute over jury selection in the morning.

The defense contended that prosecutors were prejudiced when they used all of their pre-emptory challenges to excuse nine men from the panel. They didn't eliminate any women.

In jury trials, both the prosecution and defense have a number of opportunities to eliminate people from the jury if they think it will hurt their case.

A 1986 U.S. Supreme Court case found that it was unconstitutional to strike jurors based on their race. Other cases have since extended to other protected classes such as gender.

Prosecutors argued Wednesday that they had gender-neutral reasons to eliminate each person they chose.

During the selection Tuesday, some potential jurors stated they had negative perceptions of law enforcement; others said they knew people that were falsely accused of child abuse.

After some thought and before opening statements, Judge Steven Sharpe ruled that the state had sufficient gender-neutral reasons for choosing to strike the jurors it did.

He also noted that the state initially challenged the defense's strikes since eight of the nine people they excused were female.

The state apparently withdrew that request before the hearing.

___

(c)2018 Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (Cheyenne, Wyo.)

Visit Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (Cheyenne, Wyo.) at www.wyomingnews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.