[Note: Friends of Justice is a personal blog. I speak only for myself.]
In the Texas courthouse 100 miles east of Dallas that day in September 2012, the prosecutor turned to his expert witness and asked whether he believed the child’s injuries could have been the result of an accident.
“The pattern of her burn injuries is what I would call a forced immersion,” the expert, Dr. Matthew Cox, said, indicating that someone must have intentionally held the child in scalding water.
Later, when pressed by a defense lawyer, Cox was unequivocal: “Absolutely, this is child abuse.”
Following that testimony, the girl’s grandparents, Kenneth and Shelley Walker, 55 and 60 at the time, were both convicted of injury to a child and sentenced to 25 years in prison. They assumed they would die behind bars.
Read the article by Mike Hixenbaugh in the Houston Chronicle.
