Posted on: Thursday, May 24, 2001

Palolo couple on trial in death of 2-year-old

Advertiser Staff

A trial is under way in Circuit Court for a Palolo woman and her boyfriend who were indicted in 1999 on murder charges in connection with the death of the woman's 2-year-old daughter in 1994.

Dorothy Marie Faufata and David Martinez face second-degree murder charges in the case.

Doctors at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children who treated Natasha Faufata, have said they were told the girl choked on a doughnut.

But as the girl slipped into a coma in March 1994, the medical staff noticed that she had superficial bruises and healing scrapes on her eyebrow, chin and forehead. Cigarette-like burns dotted the soles of her feet, a finger and her left elbow.

At the time of her death, the Honolulu Medical Examiner's office listed the cause as "indeterminable."

Jim Fulton, spokesman for Honolulu Prosecutor Peter Carlisle, said the case was re-evaluated in 1997 and that a decision was made to bring charges against Martinez and Faufata after prosecutors conferred with an expert in "battered baby syndrome."