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Mom, Dad Face Off Over Injuries To Baby In '05

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By TODD LESKANIC

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 7, 2008

DADE CITY - Susan Warren knew something was wrong the second she picked up her son April 1, 2005.

The boy, 31/2 months old at the time, was moaning, and his legs seemed rigid.

Tests showed the little boy's brain was bleeding and he was suffering from retinal hemorrhaging. His left carotid artery was torn.

Doctors told Warren her son's injuries happened when someone shook him violently. Wednesday, Assistant State Attorney Manny Garcia said that someone was the boy's father, Tom Warren.

Warren, 41, is on trial this week, charged with aggravated child abuse. He faces as much as 30 years in prison should he be found guilty as charged. Warren has pleaded not guilty and told investigators he didn't harm the boy.

His wife of more than 10 years - they're now separated - took the stand Wednesday and told jurors her son's injuries have permanently altered his life. He has limited use of his right arm, hand and leg. He can walk, but only with the help of a brace. His vision will never be normal.

"Of course, we don't know a lot of things about his development," she said from the witness stand. "He may not be able to drive because of this, and he'll occasionally not see something and run into a wall if he's not careful."

April 1, 2005, seemed like a typical day in the Warrens' Wesley Chapel home. Tom Warren, a self-employed accountant, took the couple's older son out to run errands with him. Susan Warren, then a social worker at University Community Hospital, had the couple's younger boy with her as she went grocery shopping.

The couple met in the hospital parking lot just before Susan's afternoon shift. He took the kids home. She went in to work.

Things were fine, until Susan Warren got a phone call from her husband about 8:30 that night. The younger boy had stopped breathing, was limp and white.
Paramedics took the boy and his father to University Community. That would be the start of a bevy of tests followed by a craniotomy and a two-week hospital stay.

In his opening statement Wednesday, Warren's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Dillon Vizcarra, said the story isn't as simple as prosecutors make it out to be.

The blood clot doctors removed from the boy's brain hours after he was taken to the hospital was between five and 10 days old.

In cross-examining witnesses Wednesday, Vizcarra said the child had been kneed in the head by a playmate on March 21, 2005. His mother also accidentally bumped his head as she was getting him out of the car days before.

But William Brooks, who acted as a consultant in the boy's care, testified that those incidents could not have caused the bleeding on the brain or retinal hemorrhaging associated with Shaken Baby Syndrome.

"It doesn't matter what else happened," Brooks said from the stand. "This kid was shaken. That's it."

Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (352) 521-3156 or tleskanic@tampatrib.com.

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