Defense in child death case questions witness testimony

The attorney defending a young mother accused of aggravated child neglect said many witnesses from a trial last fall — in which the woman’s ex-boyfriend was acquitted of murder in the child’s death — were not credible.

Lee Davis, who represents Traci Carpenter, said Monday that he is waiting on the trial transcripts so he can corroborate the “incredulity” of the witnesses who largely blamed Ms. Carpenter for the young girl’s death.

The witnesses helped convince the jury to find defendant Brian Rutherford not guilty of child abuse and first-degree murder in the death of 18-month-old Sierra Carpenter.

“There were several witnesses that were unbelievable,” Mr. Davis said, declining to name the witnesses to which he referred.

Mr. Davis, Ms. Carpenter and her family were in court Monday to settle various issues before her trial, set for Oct. 6, but the pretrial matters were rescheduled for Sept. 14. Mr. Davis has advised his client not to talk to the media.

The prosecution has continually declined to comment on the case because it is a pending matter.

Although not being prosecuted for her daughter’s death, as Mr. Rutherford was, Ms. Carpenter still could face 15 to 25 years in prison if she is convicted of the charge of aggravated child neglect.

Ms. Carpenter’s prosecution is part of the continuing mystery surrounding what actually happened to Sierra when she died in April 2006.

Prosecutors had hoped to put an end to the case last fall when they put Mr. Rutherford through a two-week trial in which they accused him of inflicting the blunt-force trauma to the little girl’s head that medical experts said killed her.

But with Mr. Rutherford’s acquittal, a cloud of suspicion over Ms. Carpenter grew larger, especially in light of trial testimony that seemed to point to her alleged repeated pattern of abuse as a plausible explanation for the girl’s death.

“(Traci Carpenter) had told me that she would lose her temper sometimes,” Bobbi Katafias, a one-time friend of Traci’s, testified at Mr. Rutherford’s trial. “(Traci) said, ‘I took my finger and poked (Sierra Carpenter) several times like this in the forehead.’”

Medical experts testified that such repeated poking of the little girl’s head over a sustained period of time could have caused Sierra’s eventual death.

The paternal grandparents of Sierra are spearheading the effort to prosecute the mother. The child’s grandmother Janice Carpenter said at the end of last year that the Hamilton County District Attorney’s office at first did not think that Ms. Carpenter would ever go to trial.

“I feel like this case would have faded away real quick if we had not been here (at the courthouse) fighting for justice for (victim Sierra Carpenter),” Janice Carpenter said last year.