MAASTRICHT - It is "very possible" that ten-week-old Landgraaf baby Jaydon died of acute cardiac death due to an extremely rare, hereditary metabolic disease. Whether there is a causal link between his severe brain injury -caused by abuse by his father Robert F. (36)- and his death has thus become unclear, according to a late report from the Netherlands Forensic Institute. The report appeared only after the father of baby Jaydon was sentenced to four years and tbs with compulsory treatment for manslaughter by the Maastricht court in early July.
His lawyer Serge Weening believes that F. should be allowed to await the appeal in his case, which will be heard by the court of appeal in Den Bosch in mid-December, as a free man. He is going to ask the examining magistrate in Den Bosch to hear the pathologist as a witness. "I am convinced that my client will be released then. He is in jail for manslaughter and in any case that can now no longer be proven, it seems to me." According to Weening, it was already clear during the hearing of the criminal case that a further report on possibly hereditary metabolic diseases was due. "But the chance that this would shed new light on the case was considered so small that nobody wanted to wait for it."
The pathologist announced that he had no choice but to "adjust my final autopsy findings." Based in part on earlier findings, the Maastricht court deemed manslaughter proven: the little boy would have died from brain damage caused by shaking and beating by his father.
Baby Jaydon died on October 25, 2007. The public prosecutor's office in Maastricht does not want to respond and refers to the district attorney's office in Den Bosch, because the appeal is pending. Press attorney general Henk van der Meijden in Den Bosch cannot comment because the public prosecutor there does not have the file.
