WOODLAND — “Something’s wrong with Cameron.”
While memories have faded over the past 2 1/2 years, two relatives of Cameron Morrison clearly recalled those four words Darnell Dorsey uttered on the night of Jan. 22, 2014 — alerting them that Cameron, his girlfriend’s youngest son, was in dire need of help.
Dorsey appeared “in a panic,” said Dominique Miller, the aunt of Cameron’s mother Veronica Rix, who had just pulled up to Rix’s Olive Drive mobile home after she, her sister Brittany Miller and Rix worked out at a local gym.
Darnell Dorsey appears in Yolo Superior Court to face charges in the death of his girlfriend’s son, Cameron Morrison. Sue Cockrell/Enterprise photo
Upon hearing the grim news, Rix bolted into the mobile home and emerged a short time later with 1 1/2-year-old Cameron, limp and unconscious in her arms. Dominique Miller drove toward the hospital while a frantic Rix administered CPR in the back seat.
“Brittany was like, ‘Stop doing it like that — you’re doing it too hard,’ ” Dominique Miller said of the chest compressions Rix gave her son. She also noted that Dorsey called one of the women’s cell phones but didn’t ask about Cameron’s condition.
Instead, he seemed “mad,” Miller said, demanding to know why the call was in speaker-phone mode.
Miller was among about a dozen witnesses who testified this week at Dorsey’s trial in Yolo Superior Court, where he stands accused of delivering the boy’s fatal assault.
Dorsey, 24, has pleaded not guilty, saying while he shook and slapped the boy because he had possibly choked on food and stopped breathing, he had not abused him.
Jurors heard testimony this week from several doctors from Sutter Davis Hospital, where Cameron first was treated and where suspicions of abuse first arose, and the UC Davis Medical Center, where the boy died of irreversible brain trauma after spending three days on life support.
That’s also where medical specialists concluded Cameron had suffered from non-accidental trauma injuries consistent with forceful shaking and other abuse: severe swelling and bleeding to the brain, rib fractures, liver lacerations and hemorrhaging to the retinas and adrenal glands.
“It’s hard to explain that other than some type of trauma,” testified Dr. Kurt Kusserow, the Sutter emergency physician who evaluated Cameron and gave him a “very poor, grave prognosis.”
Abuse allegations denied
Defense attorneys Joseph Gocke and Martha Sequeira contend that other factors led to Cameron’s injuries and ultimate death, including respiratory distress caused by a previously undiagnosed bout of pneumonia. That, they say, led to a 20-minute period during which Cameron’s brain was deprived of oxygen, triggering the brain swelling that mimicked the symptoms of non-accidental trauma.
The boy’s other injuries — including the rib fractures and lacerated liver — could have been the result of the vigorous CPR efforts he received that night on bones weakened by a vitamin D deficiency, Dorsey’s lawyers claim.
Cameron Morrison was 20 months old when he died in January 2014. Courtesy photo
While the doctors who testified conceded there were other possible explanations for some of Cameron’s injuries, they maintained non-accidental trauma as their chief diagnosis.
Both Dominique and Brittany Miller recalled that Cameron seemed lethargic with cold-like symptoms, but otherwise played normally when they picked up Rix for the gym outing. The toddler ate dinner in front of the television as they walked out the door.
The next time they saw him, Rix was cradling the unconscious boy in her arms.
“He just looked lifeless,” said Brittany Miller, Rix’s other aunt, who witnessed Rix’s brief CPR attempts from the front passenger seat of the car. The women drove to nearby Richards Boulevard and flagged down an ambulance, which delivered Cameron to the hospital.
Dorsey also drove to Richards Boulevard but left before police responded to the scene, eventually arriving at Sutter Davis Hospital with other family members.
Prosecutors have painted a picture of a strained relationship between Dorsey and Cameron, who was not his biological child. Dorsey did father Cameron’s older half-brother but only recently had become part of the boys’ lives.
But the Miller sisters, who either lived at or frequently visited the Olive Drive home after Dorsey moved in, said they never saw Dorsey abuse or mistreat either of the children. Brittany Miller denied telling police that Cameron’s brother had been “scared” of Dorsey.
“Darnell was very stern with him, but that’s the only thing I can say,” she said. “He didn’t really interact with (Cameron) that much. … He didn’t really discipline him or yell at him.”
Brittany Miller did note, however, that there had been “tension” in the home when the aunts arrived that January night, as if Dorsey and Rix had recently argued.
“I just thought he was mad, and she mentioned that he didn’t want her to go to the gym,” Miller said. But Dorsey never asked not to be left alone with the children, she added.
Rix, who testified Thursday and Friday, said there was no argument between her and Dorsey that night. She also denied that Dorsey ever acted violently toward her.
Confronted by prosecutor Michelle Serafin with Facebook messages in which Dorsey complained about Cameron’s misbehavior and of getting “zero respect” for caring for “your son,” Rix conceded the incidents happened but said she not recall them.
“Did you do anything to cause Cameron’s injuries?” Serafin then asked.
“Absolutely not,” Rix replied.
Brother won’t testify
Serafin had hoped to elicit testimony from Cameron’s older half-brother, “J,” who was 3 at the time his sibling died and was home when he became unresponsive.
J, now 5, reportedly told an uncle at Sutter Davis Hospital that “Daddy gave Cameron a whuppin’ and Cameron got sick.”
The boy made two appearances in Richardson’s courtroom this past week away from the jury — the first to determine whether he understood the importance of telling the truth, the second an evidentiary hearing to learn what, if anything, he remembered about the night of Jan. 22, 2014.
Accompanied by his mother and a comfort dog from the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office, J told Richardson that although he remembered his little brother, he didn’t recall telling his uncle how he got hurt.
“I didn’t know yet, and I don’t know right now either,” the kindergartner said. “I never knew what happened.”
Later, after J left the courtroom, Richardson ruled he would not be called as a witness.
“It’s apparent to the court that he has no memory that would provide a basis for having him … testify regarding these events,” he said.
The trial resumes today.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene
