Court orders trial in near-fatal abuse case

SANDPOINT - A Bonner County man is being ordered to stand trial for allegedly inflicting life-threatening injuries on his infant son.

Judge Quentin Harden found on Wednesday there was sufficient evidence to conclude it was more likely than not Bobby Daniel Adams caused the injuries to his five-week-old son. Adams remains held on $100,000 and his arraignment is scheduled for later this month.

Harden's ruling followed a second preliminary hearing in the case, which charges Adams with felony injury to a child. Last month, Judge Justin Julian dismissed the charge against Adams after testimony at the prior preliminary hearing failed to exclude the child's mother as the source of the injuries.

The prosecution does not believe the child's mother, Natasha Ward, inflicted the injuries. Prosecutor Phil Robinson maintains Adams intentionally harmed  Dominik while alone with the child on Aug. 17.

The charge against Adams, 25, was quickly re-filed.

The second preliminary hearing included the same cast of state's witnesses, which included Ward, Idaho State Police Det. Beth Bradbury and Dr. Joyce Gilbert, Dominik Adams' pediatrician. Also called were Dr. Gary Lee, the pediatrician who treated the child at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, and Sheriff's Det. Phyllis Jay.

Ward, 20, was the first to take the stand on Wednesday. She recounted feeding Dominik, changing his diapers and clothing the child before walking to meet her father at the Blimpies sub shop in Wal-Mart.

Robinson asked Ward where Adams was when she departed his parents' home in Ponderay.

"In the bedroom with Dominik watching over him," Ward answered.

Ward testified the infant appeared to be fine when she left the home on Piehl Road, but she received a call from Adams on her mobile phone as she walked back to the home. Adams said Dominik was acting "weird" and that she needed to return home as quickly as possible, Ward told the court.

Bradbury, who questioned Adams at Sacred Heart, told Harden that Adams said the baby had been fussing and he attempted to bottle feed him. The baby then let out a "King Kong" cry and went limp, Bradbury said, recalling Adams' statement.

Bradbury testified that Adams told her he took the child to a sink to splash water on him, which caused the child to flail and hit his head on a cooking pan.

Gilbert retook the stand on Wednesday and cataloged the grim collection of injuries suffered by the child. They included a skull fracture in the back of the head, retinal hemorrhaging, bilateral subdural hematomas and pockets of permanent brain damage.

Gilbert and Lee were unified in their position that the injuries were due to abusive head trauma and that Dominik was incapable of causing the occipital skull fracture by flailing about.

Lee told the court he sees many, many children with head injuries.

"A number of those come in from freeway-speed head-on collisions and I've got to tell you a lot of those do not have this type of injury. It's pretty significant," Lee said of the skull fracture.

The two pediatricians further testified that the symptoms of the injuries would become evident almost immediately, which contradicted Adams' statements suggesting the child was injured prior to him having sole care of Dominik and that the onset of symptoms was delayed.

Adams' defense attorney, Todd Reed, sought to highlight inconsistencies in Ward's statements during the questioning of detectives Bradbury and Jay. In the prior hearing, Ward and her father both testified meeting each other at Blimpies. Still images captured from Wal-Mart's surveillance system were introduced into evidence on Wednesday and supported the prior testimony of the Blimpies meeting.

However, Ward initially told Bradbury she was meeting an unidentified "roommate" when she left the home.

Robinson, meanwhile, successfully blocked testimony Wednesday of an anonymous and unconfirmed report alleging that Ward had been seen yelling at her child in an alarming manner at Wal-Mart on a prior occasion. That allegation seemed to raise suspicion at the prior hearing that Ward could have been responsible for Dominik's injuries.

Ward denied harming the child under defense questioning on Wednesday.

Reed and Robinson submitted their respective cases to Harden without argument. Harden said it was clear the child suffered abusive head trauma.

"I must say I am persuaded that it is more likely than not that you did inflict these injuries," Harden told Adams.