WOODLAND — Hypothermia and a previously undetected congenital heart defect contributed to the death of Justice Rees, the 19-day-old Woodland baby whose mother now stands accused of his murder.
But Yolo County coroner’s officials ultimately listed Justice’s manner of death as “undetermined,” meaning there was no one category — homicide, suicide, accidental or natural — that fully characterized how he died, Deputy Coroner John Clancy testified Wednesday in Yolo Superior Court.
Clancy’s questioning as a defense witness launched the third day of the preliminary hearing for Samantha Lee Green, 23, who prosecutors say caused her infant son’s death by taking him into a Knights Landing slough in February while in a drug-induced haze. She has pleaded not guilty.
“I was not able to determine if the death of this child was due to an intentional act,” said Clancy, who did not perform Justice’s autopsy but was present for the procedure. The pathologist who determined the baby’s cause of death was expected to testify today.
“You cannot say … that this is an act of homicide?” asked Deputy Public Defender Dave Muller, one of Green’s two court-appointed attorneys.
“Correct,” Clancy replied, adding that Justice appeared adequately nourished and showed no signs of trauma, other than abrasions consistent with being carried through the dense thickets that border the slough.
However, the deputy coroner did concede that a newborn dressed only in a wet onesie and exposed to a bitterly cold February night would suffer “extreme stress” physiologically, and that Justice’s heart defect — discovered at autopsy — would have diminished his ability to adapt to that stress.
And, at just 19 days old, Justice required the actions of another person to get him to Ridge Cut Slough in the first place, Clancy agreed under prosecutor Ryan Couzens’ cross-examination.
According to Clancy, coroner’s investigators estimated Justice’s time of death to be the early afternoon of Feb. 24, roughly 24 hours after Green drove to Knights Landing in search of her fiancé, Frank Rees, whom she suspected of cheating on her with another woman.
Green emerged alone from the slough area later that evening, disheveled and hysterical, claiming to have been kidnapped and sexually assaulted. Sheriff’s officers found Justice’s oneside-clad body the following morning, Feb. 25, after a 17-hour search.
While Green initially told authorities she had used neither drugs nor alcohol around that time, a different story emerged during one of her half-dozen interviews with police that ultimately led to her arrest.
Continuing his testimony from the day before, Yolo County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dean Nyland said Green admitted to smoking methamphetamine the night before Justice’s Feb. 5 birth and again after her water broke, and that Rees injected meth mixed with water into her rectum during the early morning hours of Feb. 23.
Later, Green would describe being on a “really bad trip” that made her suspect something else had been mixed with the meth. After arriving in Knights Landing, she walked with Justice onto a levee road, where she had visions that a male acquaintance was trying to sexually assault her.
Seeking to escape her assailant — while also thinking “the world was coming to an end” — Green removed her shoes and walked into Ridge Cut Slough, carrying her purse and diaper bag in one arm, cradling Justice in the other while trying to keep his head above water, Nyland said.
She swam an estimated 50 feet with her baby to the slough’s south shore, with Justice tucked inside her pea coat as she crawled amid the brush.
“She would pass out frequently, then she would wake up and continue to crawl,” Nyland said. Eventually she came to a tree and sat against it to rest, Justice cuddled against her chest for warmth.
Green told investigators she continued to pass out and wake up throughout the night. At one point, she awoke to find Justice by her right side, propped up against the tree, his body cold and still.
Nyland said Green recalled pulling Justice closer to her and crying for some time before realizing she needed to search for help.
“I will be back for you,” she told the baby, said Nyland, who grew somber on the witness stand as he identified numerous photographs of Justice as he was found. At the defense table in Judge David Rosenberg’s courtroom, an emotional Green dabbed a tissue at her eyes.
Her preliminary hearing continues this afternoon.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene