Toddler suffered skull fractures hours before death: pathologist

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This article was published 04/02/2021 (1724 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Drake Catcheway died within hours of receiving at least two blunt-force blows on the head, a pathologist testified Thursday at the trial of a man charged with the toddler’s slaying.

Drake suffered three skull fractures, their severity akin to injuries a child might sustain in a car crash, Dr. Petra Rahaman told court.

“We see these types of injuries in pediatric populations who are in motor vehicle collisions,” or children who strike their heads multiple times after falls from “significant” heights, Rahaman said.

Allen Beardy, 25, Drake’s mother’s former boyfriend, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

Drake died Aug. 30, 2018, after he was found not breathing in a basement bedroom of Beardy’s mother’s home. He was 21 months old.

In a subsequent police interview, Beardy told investigators Drake had fallen on his head three times that day: once as he and the boy’s mother were packing to leave for his mother’s house; a second time when he fell off a bed; and a third when he was jumping on a couch at Beardy’s mother’s house.

Earlier this week, Drake’s mother, April Thompson, said Beardy made no mention of the child hurting himself before paramedics arrived.

On Thursday, Rahaman told court bleeding underneath the boy’s scalp pointed to all three skull fractures being inflicted at the same time.

“The fact that the skull fractures all have a sub-scalp hematoma of the same age suggests the fractures are the same age,” she said.

A lack of swelling to Drake’s brain indicated the injuries had been sustained just hours before his death, Rahaman said.

An autopsy revealed Drake had suffered several internal injuries to his abdomen, including a laceration to one of his kidneys and hemorrhaging in his large intestine.

“They are all blunt-force injuries, as the result of a blunt object impacting the child or the child impacting a blunt object,” Rahaman said.

Signs of healing suggested those injuries were sustained at least days before Drake’s death, she said.

Court has heard Thompson continued to see Beardy off and on for a month following Drake’s death, believing he had nothing to do with it.

But Beardy changed, she testified Tuesday. “He was different, he was being aggressive, he was drinking more.”

Thompson said she later confronted Beardy, after a cousin accused him of hurting Drake.

“He wasn’t willing to discuss it,” she said. “He got mad and just walked away.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca