Feb. 14
OHIO:
Jury finds man guilty in murder of infant; Ross spared death penalty
A jury concluded today that John V. Ross II killed his son but spared him
from the death penalty.
Deliberating about nine hours over two days, jurors convicted Ross, 29, of
murder, a lesser charge of reckless homicide, felonious assault and child
endangering.
Ross, of Akron, was accused of aggravated murder in the July 7 death of
his 11-week-old son, John III, but was found not guilty on that charge,
which carried a possible death sentence.
Sitting between his lawyers at the defense table, dressed in a dark suit,
white shirt and tie, Ross showed no emotion as the verdicts were read.
Sheriff's deputies quickly led him out of the courtroom.
Nina Woofter, the mother of the dead child, said afterward she did not
know how to feel about the not-guilty verdict on the aggravated murder
charge, but she did say she felt justice was served.
''Nobody really knows what happened that day but God and Mr. Ross, and I
feel God's hand was in all of this and his will has been done. That's just
what I believe, but I feel justice has been done here,'' Woofter said.
Summit County Common Pleas Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove scheduled sentencing
for 9:15 a.m. Thursday. According to Ohio law, Ross faces a prison
sentence of 15 years to life for the murder conviction.
''What Judge Cosgrove does with the other charges is not known at this
time. It's up to her,'' defense lawyer Kerry O'Brien said.
Felonious assault carries a sentence of two to eight years, and the
potential sentence for reckless homicide is 1 to 5 years. Cosgrove could
run those sentences consecutively to or simultaneously with the sentence
for murder.
Jurors, who met with the lead investigator, Akron Police Detective Gary
Shadie, and lawyers from both sides after the verdicts were announced,
declined to comment to news reporters before leaving the courthouse.
Trial testimony
According to testimony in the 5-day trial, Ross was the only adult present
in a run-down, two-story home on Newton Street on the hot and humid
morning of the baby's death.
Woofter, 24, had been living there with Ross, their son, two dogs, a pet
rabbit and 6 other children she had from another relationship. She was at
work that morning at a Rally's restaurant in Barberton.
Woofter testified that she left home shortly after 9 a.m., taking a bus to
Barberton. She learned of the baby's death when police picked her up at
work and drove her back to Newton Street in the early afternoon.
In a recorded statement to Shadie two days after his son's death, Ross
said the city turned off the water at the home shortly after Woofter left
for work. He said he spent the next couple of hours in a juggling act
trying to keep the children in line while feeding them and tending to the
needs of his son.
When Little John, as he was called, would not stop crying, Ross said he
picked the baby up and placed him face down under a blanket on a sofa in
the cramped living room.
It was at that point, prosecutors contended, that Ross used a child car
seat and pressed it down on the baby for a full minute, they said to
quiet him.
Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Greg Peacock, in his opening statement,
called the car seat the murder weapon.
To prove the aggravated murder charge, prosecutors had to convince the
jury that Ross purposely killed his son.
In closing arguments Thursday, defense counsel Nathan A. Ray played the
tape of Ross' police statement for the jury. Quietly and calmly, Ross
described what it was like in the house in the moments before the child's
death.
''I couldn't think. There was so much going on, I was just trying to keep
[the baby] quieter,'' Ross said.
Calling 911
When he discovered his son wasn't breathing, Ross said, he put the child
on the floor and attempted to revive him by doing chest compressions. Ross
said he then ran out of the house, looking for a pay phone to call 911
because his cell phone was broken.
The jury also heard the 4-minute tape of the 911 call. Ross could be heard
breathing heavily throughout much of it.
Paramedics were sent to the home at 11:39 a.m. They found the baby on his
back on the living room floor, with his arms and legs outstretched.
''We knew right away that we weren't going to do any life-saving
measures,'' paramedic Robert Alestock testified.
Autopsy reports
Assistant Summit County Medical Examiner Dorothy E. Dean, who performed
the autopsy, determined the cause of death was asphyxiation from
compression of the torso, with a contributing cause of ''occlusion,'' or
blockage, of the airways.
Dean, who said she found evidence of 21 rib fractures, said the manner of
death was homicide.
Her findings were subjected to a withering attack Thursday in more than 3
hours of testimony by the defense's lone witness, Jonathan L. Arden, a
court-certified expert in forensic pathology.
Arden, a former chief medical examiner in Washington, D.C., and the No. 2
man in
