Medical expert at murder trial sees 'battered child syndrome'

By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer

A 2-year-old girl who died in 1994 was a victim of "battered child syndrome" and probably died from "asphyxiation due to suffocation," a Minnesota doctor and expert on child deaths testified in Circuit Court yesterday.

Natasha Faufata's temperature had already dropped to approximately 85 degrees by the time she was taken to a fire station for first aid March 21, 1994, and blood tests taken at Kapi'olani Medical Center a short time later showed that several of her body's vital functions had begun shutting down hours earlier because of brain damage caused by the suffocation, Dr. Janice Ophoven said.

Ophoven was hired by the Honolulu prosecutor's office to review the facts surrounding the deaths of three O'ahu children, all of them cases in which the Honolulu Medical Examiner's Office listed the cause of death as "indeterminable."

Dorothy Marie Faufata and David Martinez are standing trial on second-degree murder charges in connection with Natasha's death.

Doctors at Kapi'olani Medical Center who treated the girl have said they were told she choked on a doughnut.

Dr. Kanthi von Guenthner, first deputy medical examiner, said in her 1994 autopsy report that she could not rule out child abuse as a possible cause of Natasha's death, Ophoven said.

After studying the autopsy report, photographs, hospital records and all other available information, Ophoven said she concluded that Natasha "had to be desperately ill" for as long as several hours before she arrived at the hospital.

Dorothy Faufata and Martinez told authorities they sought help for Natasha almost immediately after the toddler choked on the doughnut, but Ophoven disagreed.

"There is corroborating evidence that she died, or was pretty much dead, by the time she came to the hospital," Ophoven said.

Other evidence of prior abuse included small circular burns, probably from a lighted cigarette held against the toddler's palms, finger, elbow and the soles of her feet, Ophoven testified.

And there was evidence of a prior "transverse fracture" to the right forearm, the kind of break associated with a child being struck rather than falling down, Ophoven said, adding there was no record of the girl's ever having been treated for the broken arm.

In response to questions from attorney Chester Kanai, who represents Dorothy Faufata, Ophoven acknowledged that medical records did indicate a pattern of "diligent, regular well-child care" sought by the mother in the month's leading up to the little girl's death.

But Ophoven added later that a "traumatic assault" upon Natasha Faufata "rendered her unable to breathe" and once the swelling inside the toddler's brain progressed, her body was no longer able to support life.

Natasha Faufata was "traumatically assaulted multiple times," not only on the day of her death, Ophoven said.