An Alabama woman accused of having killed her infant son more than a decade ago in eastern Pennsylvania alleges that she was duped into meeting with police last summer and pressured to confess even though she was innocent.
Wendi Stanford is charged in Lehigh County in the November 2003 death of 2-1/2--month-old Christopher Harbin. An autopsy concluded that he died from a skull fracture.
Stanford, 31, wants prosecutors barred from using her statements. The (Easton) Express-Times reports she said she initially thought she was talking to a caseworker and later feared losing custody of her children, and police pressured her “to admit to something I didn't do.”
But a county detective said she didn't seem upset after the interview or when she was arrested in September and transported to Allentown.
Lehigh County authorities with the assistance of local authorities arrested Stanford back in September where she lives now in Florence, Ala., Martin said.
The investigation into Stanford began in the days after emergency crews responded to a 911 call for an unresponsive baby on Nov. 11, 2003, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
According to the affidavit, emergency personal found Christopher Harbin in cardio-pulmonary arrest and rushed him to the hospital where he would die two days later.
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A CT scan had revealed a large skull fracture and, a day after the death, an autopsy confirmed the child died by blunt force trauma to the head.
Authorities interviewed Stanford, who then used the name Wendi Harbin, her then husband and the young boy’s grandfather. Both men said they were sleeping at the time the boy became unresponsive and police determined that Stanford was alone with the child for hours before calling for help.
Investigators kept looking into the case into 2004 and periodically reviewed it from time to time after that but Martin said there was never evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that would allow for charges.
The case was reexamined last April with a forensic pathologist taking a look at the evidence. The experts concluded that a cardio-pulmonary event could be caused by the type of head trauma the child suffered and that the severity of the injuries weren’t consistent with Stanford’s explanation.
Stanford and the boy’s father are now divorced.
