Lily Scheip wiped away tears as she sat at the defendant’s table in a courtroom in the downtown Sarasota judicial center Tuesday, Aug. 13, listening to opening statements by the prosecution.
The Sarasota mother, 34, is accused of killing her 14-week old infant son, Dominic, and is on trial for second degree murder.
In the gallery behind the prosecution, Scheip’s husband’s family were gathered, as a handful of supporters sat behind Scheip.
Scheip was arrested in March 2022, more than four months after she frantically ran to a neighbor’s home on Nov. 8, 2021, with her son’s unconscious and limp body in her arms, crying for help.
She would later tell investigators that she had laid her son down in his bassinet in the main bedroom, and when she returned 10-15 minutes later to check on him, she noticed he wasn’t breathing and was pale with slightly blue lips.
She detailed how in her panicked state she couldn’t find her phone, running out the door to a neighbor’s home in search of assistance.
A medical examiner later found that the infant had three distinguishable bruises around his head, and two significant impacts on the back of his head which caused hemorrhaging in his brain, according to previous reporting. A three-inch fracture on the right side of the infant’s skull was also discovered from an older injury.
During opening statements Tuesday, the prosecution said its case would focus on three days and three specific injuries which the then 3 month old suffered leading up to his death.
Defense attorney Courtney Benson asked the jury to suspend their assumptions and societal biases while listening to evidence presented throughout the trial.
Benson stressed during her opening statements that her client wasn’t a single mother and that her husband was also responsible for the care of their young son.
“This is not a case of a mother that failed her child,” Benson said. “This is a case of the criminal justice system failing a mother.”
Witness testimony details events leading up to death: he was a ‘happy, healthy baby’
Projected on a screen behind Peter Scheip during his testimony was a photo of baby Dominic. The 14 week old was wearing a red and white striped onesie, a smile on his face as he stared at the camera.
It was the last photo Peter Scheip snapped of his son right before heading out the door to work on Nov. 8, 2021.
More than 12 hours later, Dominic would be transported by ambulance to Sarasota Memorial Hospital and then flown to Tampa General Hospital where he would be declared brain dead two days later.
As the prosecution called about a dozen witnesses to the stand, they attempted to show the jury that the only person who could have caused Dominic’s injuries was Scheip. She had been alone with her two sons in the hours leading up to the incident, and Dominic had been acting normal in the days leading up to being found unconscious.
Through testimony by Sarasota County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Sarah Sanchez, the prosecution entered into evidence recorded interviews with Lily Scheip. In one of the interviews, Lily Scheip described what sounded like a routine day spent taking care of her sons: she ensured they ate, had their diapers changed, spent time outside in the nice weather and had their naps.
That evening, Lily Scheip was left alone again while Peter went to attend band practice around 7 p.m. Peter Scheip testified that Dominic was acting normal before he left, that he’d been his “happy, healthy self.”
Lily Scheip told the detectives in the recorded interviews that a little before 9 p.m., she’d tried to feed Dominic but he didn’t want his bottle. When she checked on him 15 minutes later after taking care of her older son, he wasn’t breathing.
Leslie Rode had just laid down in bed to watch television when she heard crying outside her home, the registered nurse testified. The next thing she knew, her garage door was opening and her daughter-in-law entered the home with a woman in tow, a limb baby in her arms who was still warm to the touch.
After not finding a pulse, Rode moved the baby to the floor to begin CPR with Scheip performing rescue breathing. Rode’s daughter-in-law called 911.
Rode testified that Scheip cried and kept repeating, “Come on Dominic, come on baby.”
When paramedics finally arrived on scene a few minutes after being dispatched, they were able to get a pulse back while on the way to the hospital, but Dominic wasn’t able to breath on his own, Sarasota County firefighter/paramedic William Wilkinson testified.
Dominic was later flown to Tampa General Hospital where he was placed on a ventilator. On Nov. 10, he was taken off life support. After her son’s death, Scheip voluntarily checked herself into the Bayside Center for Behavioral Health.
A charge nurse testified that she observed Scheip going through alcohol withdrawal symptoms while at Bayside. She added Scheip had said that following the unexpected death of her sister in July 2021, she’d been drinking every day. It was while being administered into Bayside that Scheip allegedly said that she blacked out most days, including the day of the incident.
Scheip later clarified to detectives, according to evidence, that she realized she had “blacked out” or rather couldn’t recall the events after her son was taken to Sarasota Memorial Hospital due to the trauma of what had happened, not from drinking.
Hillsborough County medical examiners’ testimonies reveal manner of death was homicide
During the second day of testimony, the prosecution called two medical examiners from Hillsborough county who performed the autopsy.
Both concurred that the manner of death was homicide and that the cause was blunt force trauma which caused severe hemorrhaging throughout Dominic’s brain and spinal cord.
“The first thing that came into my head was that this child had been beaten,” Deputy Medical Examiner Kelly Devers said.
The autopsy revealed bruising along Dominic’s forehead, as well as the top and back of his head.
Tests and examinations done by the Hillsborough Medical Examiner’s Office revealed that the injuries the infant sustained were freshly inflicted. While Devers couldn’t give an exact age of the injuries, she said they were less than three to five days old.
When asked by the defense if the injuries could have been sustained in the days or even hours prior to him being found unconscious, Devers said it wasn’t possible, that the injuries had to occur very close to when he was found.
The medical examiners also reviewed the infant’s previous medical records, including x-rays of a previous fracture in Dominic’s right femur. Testimony revealed that when the baby was about three weeks old, Scheip had been burping him while sitting on a La-Z-Boy recliner. She had placed one hand on his stomach to hold him and used the other to pat his back.
At the same time, her older son climbed onto the side of the recliner and grabbed her arm, pulling her hand away from Dominic who fell forward. Scheip attempted to stop him from falling, grabbing his foot which most likely caused the fracture. She took Dominic to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg where he received a leg brace.
There was a subsequent investigation by the Department of Children and Family services, but the case was closed without any findings of abuse, according to testimony.
The autopsy also revealed an older fracture on Dominic’s skull that had formed four to eight weeks prior to his death and had been in the process of healing. There was no clear indication of when or how Dominic had sustained the fracture.
Defense attempts to cast doubts
Throughout the defense’s questioning of the State’s witnesses, it became clear their goal was to point to the fact that what happened to Dominic still remains mostly a mystery.
Both Benson and co-counsel Bart Stoddard highlighted that no witness was able to answer if they knew what led to Dominic becoming unconscious.
The medical examiners testified they could not determine what or how Dominic sustained the blunt force trauma, nor could they testify as to who caused the injuries. It was the same answer given by many of the witnesses that the defense questioned.
When Benson asked if Devers or McEnnan ran a genetic panel on Dominic to determine if he had a hereditary blood disease or blood clotting disorder which could have been the cause for Dominic’s sudden death, Devers said they hadn’t run such a test.
While questioning one of the attending ER physicians at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, Benson introduced the idea of the phenomenon known as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, which is used to describe situations where infants are found dead in their cribs with no apparent reason for what caused their sudden deaths.
The defense also questioned medical experts whether prolonged CPR compressions, given continuously for 45 minutes to an hour, could have caused some of the injuries that were found during autopsy. At least two sources denied CPR being a cause for bleeding in the brain.
Gabriela Szymanowska covers the criminal justice, courts and legal system for the Herald-Tribune. Reach out with a news tip to gszymanowska@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: 3 days, 3 injuries: Prosecutors outline case against Sarasota mother in infant’s death
Reporting by Gabriela Szymanowska, Sarasota Herald-Tribune / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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