Trial ordered in Davis child death case

Darnell D’Angelo Dorsey, the Sacramento man suspected of inflicting the deadly injuries on 20-month-old Cameron Morrison in January 2014, is scheduled to be arraigned March 20 on a felony charge of assault on a child resulting in death.

Judge Paul Richardson’s ruling came on the final day of Dorsey’s five-day preliminary hearing, which culminated Thursday with testimony from the forensic pathologist who performed Cameron’s autopsy.

Cameron died of “severe traumatic brain injury due to multiple blunt-force injuries,” said Dr. Ikechi Ogan, who under questioning from prosecutors noted not only the child’s head wounds but also numerous rib fractures and internal-organ damage that did not appear to be accidental.

“It occurred to me these could not be accountable to a single event,” Ogan testified. “That implies an ongoing pattern.”

Yolo County coroner’s officials ruled Cameron’s death a homicide, “which I agree with,” Ogan said.

Dorsey, 22, previously has pleaded not guilty to the assault charge, claiming he found Cameron unresponsive and possibly choking on food while caring for the boy and his half-brother at his girlfriend’s Olive Drive mobile home on the night of Jan. 22, 2014. He told police he shook and slapped the boy in an attempt to revive him because “I didn’t know what else to do.”

Cameron’s life-threatening injuries were readily apparent to doctors who evaluated him at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, where he was transferred following a brief stay at Sutter Davis Hospital.

“He was obviously very seriously ill,” said Dr. Kevin Coulter, the Med Center’s chief of general pediatrics, who during his testimony in the case last week described Cameron’s head injuries as “catastrophic,” having occurred shortly before his arrival at the hospital.

Coulter said the boy’s brain had swelled significantly between his discharge from Sutter and his arrival at UCD — so much so that a computed tomography (CT) scan showed virtually no space between the brain and the skull. The scan also showed hemorrhaging on the brain’s surface.

Chest and abdominal scans, meanwhile, revealed evidence of multiple rib fractures in various stages of healing, as well as a lacerated liver and hemorrhaging to his adrenal glands.

“These are high force kinds of injuries,” unlikely to have an accidental cause, Coulter said. He added that medical tests ruled out bone disease or vitamin deficiency as triggers for the fractures.

“I think these were child abuse injuries,” Coulter said.

Cameron died at 1:24 p.m. on Jan. 25, 2014, after his family, told the child was brain dead, had him removed from life support.

Under cross-examination by Dorsey’s public defenders, Coulter said he could not offer more specific dates and times Cameron’s injuries were inflicted or pinpoint whether they had in fact occurred while he was in Dorsey’s care.

The defense attorneys also elicited testimony regarding a stairway fall Cameron had taken several weeks before his death, though Coulter said the family recalled no significant injuries resulting from it. Ogan, the pathologist, told the defense Cameron showed no signs of neck injuries, an apparent reference to shaken-baby syndrome, but added they’re not always present in cases involving blunt-force wounds.

Ogan said the autopsy also revealed bruising to Cameron’s lungs and both retinal and optic-nerve hemorrhaging, but no injuries consistent with having choked on food.

Davis police officers testified in January that Cameron’s mother, Victoria Rix, discovered her son’s grave condition when she returned home from an outing to find Dorsey holding the unconscious child in her arms. She began driving him to the hospital, but spotted an ambulance parked on nearby Richards Boulevard and flagged it down.

Dorsey initially went to the hospital but was arrested several hours later following an interview with Davis police detectives.

He remains in Yolo County Jail custody. His attorneys said Thursday it could be close to another year before the case goes to trial, as the medical expert they hope to retain would not be available to testify until December at the earliest.