Bourbeau and Michael Riley's lawyer, John Darrell, tried to shift responsibility for Rebecca Riley's death to the child's psychiatrist, Dr. Kayoko Kifuji of Tufts-New England Medical Center, asserting that the girl should never have been given the drug.
According to court records, Kifuji prescribed clonidine and other drugs after she diagnosed Rebecca at age 2 with bipolar disorder and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. Kifuji also was treating the Rileys' two older children, who are now in the custody of the Department of Social Services. The adult Rileys, the lawyers said, carefully complied with Kifuji's instruction. "The error here is by Dr. Kifuji and not the Rileys," Darrell said.
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HINGHAM -- Defense lawyers for a Hull couple charged with murdering their 4-year-old daughter by overmedicating her said the couple got early refills because they spoiled pills while breaking them into smaller pieces.
Michael C. Bourbeau, the attorney for Carolyn Riley, said yesterday that the accidental spoilage of clonidine pills by his client helps rebut allegations by Plymouth prosecutors that she improperly obtained an excessive amount of drugs to poison her youngest child , Rebecca .
"You just don't find them again whenever you break pills in half," as Carolyn Riley had to do, he said. "It's only to be expected that a good amount of these pills would be lost in the breaking, as is normal whenever you break a pill in half, particularly tiny pills
Lawyers for dead girl's parents offer rebuttal of overdose case
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