Trial starts for mother of starving baby boy

The felony trial began Tuesday in Garland County Circuit Court of a local woman charged with endangering her newborn son after he was reportedly found to be malnourished after being discharged into her care in 2016.

Summer Rose Kazzee, 20, was arrested July 17, 2016, and charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a minor, punishable by up to six years in prison, and was released on $1,000 bond two days later.

The father of the child, Kody Nathaniel Weber-Kio, 22, who was arrested on the same charge July 19, 2016, and later released on $1,000 bond, is set to stand trial beginning Thursday.

In her opening remarks, Deputy Prosecutor Kara Petro told the six-man, six-woman jury that Kazzee gave birth to "a healthy baby boy" on April 24, 2016, who weighed 6 pounds, 14.8 ounces, and he was discharged into the care of her and Weber-Kio the next day.

At his first checkup on April 28, he was "doing well" but missed his next two scheduled appointments. Both parents finally brought the nearly 8-week-old child to his next scheduled appointment on June 20 and it was noted he weighed 6 pounds, 7.5 ounces, less than what he weighed at birth, Petro said.

"He looked emaciated, his skin was wrinkly and loose and he was severely dehydrated," Petro said, prompting doctors to hospitalize him at CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs.

She said the stories given by the parents about the reasons for his condition and his care and feeding were "inconsistent" and Kazzee's behavior was described as "erratic" by hospital personnel, who said it appeared "she didn't want to feed him."

Petro said Kazzee would constantly leave to go smoke and would leave the baby alone in the bed, not in a crib or bassinet, while she was gone. She noted during the first three days of being under hospital care, the baby gained weight rapidly and his health thrived.

The child was removed from the care of his parents and placed in foster care and within a month weighed 10 pounds and "continued to gain weight at a rapid rate," Petro said, noting there was no medical reason for him to be malnourished.

"The only reason for his condition was that his mother was not feeding him enough and was putting his health and life at risk," she said.

Kazzee's attorney, Clay Janske, told the jury he did not disagree with a lot of the facts the prosecution would present, but argued "there is a whole lot more to this case" and the jury would need to look at how the facts and evidence applied to the law.

"The important thing to consider is whether it happened purposefully or not," he said. "I believe you will realize at the end because no one is going to testify that what she did was purposeful."

Mary Smith, a registered nurse at St. Vincent, testified when the baby was discharged she gave the parents a four-page handout explaining how to properly care for the baby and went over all of it with them.

She said she explained that in the first week or so the baby would need to be fed every three to four hours which might involve waking the baby to feed him since babies will often sleep 16 to 20 hours a day.

Smith said she told them if there was a problem with the baby "spitting up" excessively they needed to take the baby to a doctor. She said Kazzee indicated to her she understood everything she had told her.

Dr. Gregory Whorton, the pediatrician who treated the baby, noted when he first examined the baby on April 28, four days after his birth, he did not note anything significant. He said the baby's weight was below his birth weight at that point, but he was not concerned since "babies can lose up to 10 percent of their birth weight in the first week."

He said it is then normal for the baby to rapidly begin gaining weight, about an ounce a day. He said he told the parents to bring the baby in once a week for a checkup "until we are comfortable he is gaining weight."

He said an appointment was scheduled for May 4, but was not kept. Another appointment was made for June 16, but the parents again failed to bring him in. They finally kept his appointment on June 20 and Whorton said the baby was "very small, underweight and malnourished" and had lost weight since his first appointment.

"This was very concerning because he should have gained 3 to 4 pounds by then," he said, noting he told the parents he needed "urgent attention."

He said Kazzee initially told him she was feeding him 4 ounces of formula three times a day, which would not have been enough. He said he left the room at one point and when he came back, Weber-Kio told him she had been mistaken and it was 4 ounces every three hours, which would be the appropriate amount.

Whorton said they told him the baby had been spitting up, "forcefully at times," so he wanted to run tests to see if there was a medical reason for his condition.

When asked about Kazzee's demeanor at this time, Whorton said, "I felt like she didn't grasp the seriousness of the situation."

He said he ran tests and found nothing significant in his bloodwork or other test results. He said the baby did show signs of "a mild degree of reflux" but it would not have accounted for his condition.

Whorton said there was no medical reason for his loss in weight and noted he gained weight immediately in the hospital. He said in subsequent checkups after the baby was placed in foster care, he was thriving and healthy.

Whorton said the baby was given a different kind of hypo-allergenic formula in the hospital than what his parents had been giving him that was easier to digest, but noted it was more expensive and harder to find.

He said they later switched him back to regular formula and "he still did fine," noting, "A milk allergy was not his problem. I've never seen a child with a milk allergy have a failure to thrive to the degree he did."

He said the baby's problem was due to inadequate caloric intake, noting, "I believe he was not being fed adequately."

Under cross by Janske, Whorton admitted he could not recall for certain which parent brought the baby in for his first appointment on April 28 and acknowledged it could have been only Weber-Kio who was told when to bring him back.

"I'm not sure who the appointment was made with," he said, and admitted he was not certain of the procedure that was used to contact the parents about the missed appointments.

He also noted that after being told the baby needed to be hospitalized, it was Kazzee and Weber-Kio who immediately transported the baby to the hospital on their own.

When asked if the baby's continual spitting up could have contributed to his malnutrition, if he was spitting up half of what he was fed, Whorton agreed it could have affected his calorie intake to a degree.

Asked if the baby could have been allergic to milk in the beginning but outgrew it, Whorton said he didn't think so, noting, "I've never seen it happen in that short of a period of time."

The trial is scheduled to continue today with Judge Marcia Hearnsberger presiding.

Local on 01/24/2018

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