Posted on 10/19/2005 2:13:06 PM PDT by Millee
A dying 6-month-old baby who had been on a raw food diet looked like a starving famine victim usually seen in a poverty-stricken foreign country, a police officer testified on Tuesday in the manslaughter and child neglect trial of the infant's parents.
Homestead Officer Robert B. Brown told a Miami-Dade County jury that he saw Woyah Andressohn lying on a blanket on the floor of an apartment after he responded to a frantic 911 call placed the night of May 14, 2003 by her parents, Joseph and Lamoy Andressohn.
The baby's arms and legs were rail-thin and her belly was distended, Brown said. Trash and clothes were littered around the apartment along with orange peels and other bits of food, he said.
The baby's condition, he said, "looked like something you might see in a National Geographic magazine, in an African country or a Third World country," Brown testified as the nine-person jury was shown enlarged pictures of Woyah.
Prosecutors say the Andressohns starved the baby to death by feeding her a diet of wheat grass, coconut water and almond milk. The couple is also charged with neglect in the treatment and feeding of their other four children, who have been living with a relative under state supervision.
"It happened because her parents, Joseph and Lamoy, were irresponsible parents," said prosecutor Herbert E. Walker III in opening arguments. "Baby Woyah could not say, 'I'm hungry. This wheat grass just isn't enough. Give me more.'"
Under questioning from the Andressohns' attorneys, Brown admitted that he did not attempt to administer aid to Woyah the night she died and instead waited for emergency medical personnel to arrive while preserving the apartment scene for Miami-Dade homicide detectives. Woyah was pronounced dead on May 15, 2003, at Homestead Hospital.
"You did nothing to help resuscitate the child, right?" asked defense lawyer Robert Barrar.
"I was following my department guidelines," Brown replied.
Barrar and his fellow defense lawyer, Ellis Rubin, contend that the Andressohns were targeted in a rush to judgment based on part on their alternative lifestyle, including their desire to feed themselves and their children only natural raw foods. They also say that Woyah suffered from a congenital condition - lack of a thymus gland needed to build an immune system - that led to her death.
"She suffered from several congenital ailments," Rubin said. "It didn't matter what the diet was."
Two of the Andressohns' other children are scheduled to testify in the case Wednesday about how their parents forced them to undergo enemas and sometimes whipped them if they ate the wrong foods. The children will appear in court via video hookup, with television networks agreeing to obscure their faces.
The Andressohns each face more than 17 years in prison if convicted on charges of aggravated manslaughter and child neglect. Their trial is expected to last about two weeks.
When I was living in Miami (1999-2002) Homestead was a no man's land that had never recovered from Hurricane Andrew. Lots of weird people down there.
This makes me sick!
Hang 'em high..."alternative lifestyle" my a**! I hate when they say crap like that. Poor kids. :(
>>Barrar and his fellow defense lawyer, Ellis Rubin<<
Bottomfeeders.
This whole story makes me cry. Poor little angel. God Bless all these kids.
http://www.rawfoodinfo.com/
The whole 'Raw Food' scene appears to be some extreme vegetarian diet that has roots in a bizarre left wing Africaphile culture where black people from the Southern USA play dress up and pretend that they're Umfufu Mbutus who invented the Pyramids in Egypt or something.
What the hell is going on these days?
Hmmm,
6 months?
That baby was still supposed to be on breast milk....
and if they are REALLY going back to the 'old days of tribes and natural living'...
Then it would have been on the brest for the first 2 years, because that is how you feed a BABY!
GEEZ! Felony wackaloon.
Heat is an artificial ingredient that has warped your mind.
Vegans are a real trip, believing any use of animals or animal products for food (possibly any use of an animal for economic gain as well) on moral grounds.
It is my belief that these twerps could be given a couple of hundred beef cattle to take care of for a month, and at the end of 30 days they would want to kill ALL of them. They might not still eat them, but they would want to kill them.
Once, a girl I chatted up in college noticed by cowboy boots and asked from what they were made. I replied, cows and lizards. That earned me a moralistic lecture. When she finished her diatribe, I added that my boots were lined with unborn calf skin, which prompted another animal aggrandizing outburst. I asked her if she thought it would be more moral to have my boots lined with human embryo skin, which elicited a slap and a walkoff in reply.
I promptly ordered another shot of whiskey and some pickled eggs.
There's no "rush to judgement" here - they murdered their baby... Lock 'em up and throw away the key.
This story is one of the saddest I have ever seen. Those poor little darlings made to suffer at the hands of those people that call themselves parents. Alternative lifestyle is not what this case is. It is MURDER, IMHO
Actually it doesn't do a whole lot of good to breast feed a baby, if the mother has been on a wacko diet like this for any significant length of time. The breasts can't magically manufacture essential nutrients that the mother simply refuses to ingest.
God help the children.
They are likely to suffer even more at the hands of foster systems.
Ping
Najida, this mother probably couldn't produce breast milk if she wasn't eating a balanced diet herself! It is pretty surprising that this natural foods freak wasn't feeding her baby the most natural diet around.
They are likely to suffer even more at the hands of foster systems
---I know but let's pray that someone kind and loving gets them so that they can experience what a true, loving family feels like. Bless their hearts.
Thank you!
That could be why she wasn't breastfeeding. Her milk supply probably dried up. Drinking enough water isn't all there is too it.
You know, goat milk is pretty close in composition to breast milk. She could have used that. I know someone who did cause she couldn't breastfeed for some reason and her son just could not tolerate any kind of formula. She tried the goat milk sort of as a last resort and he did great on it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.