A pediatric radiologist testified Monday that injuries that caused the death of 4-month-old Ina Jane McElheny were from abuse. The child’s father, Joseph McElheny, 32, faces charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter, assault and endangering the welfare of a child.
Ina Jane McElheny died from complications from a ruptured bowel and had numerous broken bones in various stages of healing.
Dr. Barbara Dangman, a pediatric radiologist at Albany Medical Center, testified that the infant was abused by an adult who twisted and yanked her legs, squeezed her torso and fractured ribs, and inflicted a powerful blow that ruptured a bowel, causing her death.
Dangman said the infant had at least nine skeletal fractures that were inflicted at various times going back at least a month before her father, Joseph McElheny, 32, called emergency workers at 1:30 a.m. May 12, 2010, to report that the child was unresponsive.
“Her injuries are highly suspect for inflicted injury or abuse,” Dangman said after showing X-ray photos to jurors. “Babies’ bones are soft and bend, so it would have taken quite a lot of force to cause these injuries. The child could not have caused them by accident because she was not even able to crawl yet.”
McElheny, of 3 River St., Hoosick Falls, is on trial for the alleged murder of his daughter in what prosecutors describe as a classic case of child abuse.
Defense attorney Gregory Cholakis claims the child was not abused, but rather suffered from rickets, an affliction in which low levels of vitamin D cause soft or brittle bones that are easily broken.
Dangman showed jurors X-rays of the infant’s legs and her fractures, comparing the images to X-rays fractures in another child that were caused by a vitamin D deficiency. She said they did not match.
Cholakis also suggested that the rib fractures may have been caused by aggressive CPR.
“Those fractures were already in stages of healing, so that would be impossible,” Dangman said.
McElheny told police he would throw the child up in the air and catch her because it made her laugh. Cholakis suggested that could cause the fractures, but Dangman said that was unlikely.
“Many parents do that and we don’t see these types of injuries,” Dangman said.